— I’m okay, — Alisa dodged a direct answer.
— I’m glad. Really, I’m glad. You deserve to be happy. Forgive me again for everything.
He hung up. Alisa sat with the phone in her hand for a long time, looking out at the dark window. Cancer. It was terrifying. Even for someone like Zoya Pavlovna.
She thought all night. And in the morning, she made a decision. She went to that communal apartment on the outskirts of the city. Denis opened the door for her.
He looked exhausted. The room was cramped, smelling of medicine. On an old iron bed, covered with a faded blanket, lay Zoya Pavlovna. She had become a shadow of her former self: emaciated, with parchment-like skin and huge, sunken eyes.
— Hello, Alisa, — she whispered. Her voice was barely audible.
— Hello, Zoya Pavlovna. — Alisa approached the bed.
They looked at each other. Her mother-in-law’s gaze was no longer angry and domineering. There was only pain and fear in it.
— Forgive me, — she breathed out.
Alisa nodded.
— I forgive you.
She didn’t know if it was the truth. But at that moment, it seemed like the only right thing to say. She didn’t stay long, about ten minutes. She talked to Denis, asked if he needed help. He shook his head: “We’re managing.”
When she went outside, the first snow began to fall. Large, fluffy flakes slowly swirled in the air, covering the gray asphalt with a white blanket. Alisa lifted her face to the sky and let the snowflakes fall on it. She forgave them. Not for them. For herself. To let go of the past and move on.
She got into her red car, started the engine, and drove home. To her bright, cozy apartment, where no one was waiting for her. But where she felt good and calm. She drove through the snowy city, and her heart felt light.
For the first time in a long time, she felt that the war she had been fighting for two years was really over. It ended not with a court verdict, but with her own forgiveness. She had won. She had defended her right to life, to happiness, to freedom.
And now, a new road lay before her, as clean as the first snow. A road to the future, which she would build herself.
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