He came closer, placing the bags on the snow-covered bench.
— “And where is the car I gave you two years ago for the birth of my grandson?”
Vera felt something inside her tighten and snap. For three years she had held on, for three years she had been silent, for three years she had convinced herself that this was how it should be, that she was just a bad wife who didn’t know how to please her husband. But now, looking into her father’s eyes, she realized she couldn’t lie anymore.
— “Maxim took it on the very first day,” her voice trembled, the words coming out with difficulty, as if each one caused physical pain. “He said women don’t belong behind the wheel, that I would just crash the car and embarrass him.”
Pyotr Nikolaevich was silent, but his lips tightened into a thin line. Artem stirred in his mother’s arms and began to whimper, and Vera mechanically began to rock him, continuing to speak. Because if she stopped now, she would never tell him.
— “He takes all my salary, Dad. Forty-five thousand every month. He only leaves me three thousand for diapers and baby food. He says I should be grateful that he even lets me work instead of staying at home like a normal wife.”
— “And the car?” her father said quietly, but there was something new in his voice that Vera had never heard before. A cold rage, carefully controlled, but all the more terrifying for it.
— “Svetlana, Maxim’s colleague from the workshop, drives it. She’s been driving it for six months, passing it off as a gift from her husband,” Vera gave a bitter smile, feeling tears burn her eyes. “I saw them together a month ago at the shopping center. He was kissing her, and she was laughing and stroking the steering wheel of my car.”
Pyotr Nikolaevich stood motionless. Only the muscles in his jaw twitched. The snow continued to fall, covering his shoulders with a white blanket. But he seemed to notice neither the cold nor the wind.
— “That’s not all, Dad,” Vera swallowed, holding Artem closer. “The day before yesterday, Lyudmila Vasilievna came over.”
She was always formal with her mother-in-law, even in her thoughts.
— “With some notary, Valery Petrovich, and two huge guys.”
— “What did they want?”
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