The Vacation He Booked for Another Woman — With His Wife’s Money
Ksenia stepped out of the shopping mall carrying a bag of notebooks and two jars of coffee, and the first thing she felt was anger at her own legs for refusing to move any faster.
Eleven hours on shift. Four sites. Thirty meters of welds inspected by ultrasound. She had been living like this for a month now, to the point where she could no longer remember what color summer was.
“Ksyusha! Ksenia Andreyevna! Come on, I know you can see me!”
A woman stepped out from beneath the awning, wearing a linen blazer, a tablet tucked under her arm, and a smile so enthusiastic it looked as though someone was paying her to be optimistic.
Vera Streltsova.
The travel agent the Sergeev family had used for five consecutive years.
“I see you,” Ksenia grumbled. “I just can’t believe it’s really you. I must be hallucinating from lack of sleep.”
“You’ve disappeared! Completely disappeared!” Vera took her by the arm. “You haven’t called in a year. I was starting to think you’d gotten rich and were booking your own flights.”
“We’ve gotten poor, and we don’t fly anywhere anymore.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Believe me, Vera, it’s possible. My son is in ninth grade, has four private tutors, and has developed a nervous tic. I’ve got an emergency workload at the factory, night shifts, and welds that are supposedly ‘perfectly fine, just scan them one more time.’ Yesterday, I fell asleep in the changing room.”
Vera led her to a bench beneath a linden tree and sat her down the way people seat someone who is ill.
“But you always flew out at the end of June. Like clockwork. Your anniversary is on the twenty-eighth.”
“Fifteen years this time,” Ksenia said with a dry chuckle. “Crystal anniversary, glass anniversary, I can’t remember. Something breakable.”
“All the more reason!”
“Vera, I don’t even have the energy to choose between two hotels. I’d rather inspect another forty meters of pipeline than read reviews complaining that ‘the breakfast selection was limited.’”
“You don’t have to read anything. That’s what I’m here for.”
“What I need is someone who’ll at least say, ‘Ksyusha, let’s go.’ And there’s no one like that in my house.”
Vera studied her carefully, narrowing her eyes slightly. It was the look of someone who, after fifteen years in the travel business, had learned to listen not to words but to the pauses between them.
“All right. We’ll keep in touch,” she said. “I’ll send you some options. You just point at one.”
“I’ll point,” Ksenia agreed. “If I survive that long.”
At home, the apartment smelled of a burnt cottage-cheese pancake, and Timofey was sitting over a math workbook looking like a man sentenced to hard labor.
“Mom, I don’t understand problem fifteen.”
“There are a lot of things I don’t understand either,” Ksenia said, setting down her bag. “For example, why you decided to figure that out at nine-thirty at night.”
“Well, because I hadn’t tried solving it earlier.”
“Logical. Devastatingly logical.”
Artyom came out of the bedroom, drying his hands on a towel.
He was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt bearing the logo of the standardization center where he had spent twelve years certifying scales, weights, and pressure gauges.
A man whose professional responsibility was to make sure nobody cheated anyone on measurements.
“Why are you so angry?” he asked.
“I’m not angry. I’m economical. I’m saving my good mood. It’s in short supply.”
“Did something happen?”
“I ran into Vera. Streltsova. The one who used to arrange our vacations.”
Artyom shifted his shoulders strangely and sat down across from her.
“And?”
“Nothing. She reminded me that we’ll have been married fifteen years on the twenty-eighth. Asked where we’re flying.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said we’re not flying anywhere because my head is full of inspection schedules, exam schedules, and the schedule for when I might finally get some sleep.”
Artyom was silent for a moment.
Then he said something Ksenia had never heard from him in fifteen years of marriage.
“Let me organize everything.”
She stared at him the way an inspector stares at an instrument displaying a reading beyond its calibrated range.
“Say that again.”
“I said I’ll handle the vacation. Hotel, flights, transfers. Everything.”
“Artyom, you go grocery shopping with a list I write in capital letters. Once you came home without bread because bread was the last item on the list, and you stopped at the second-to-last line.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not laughing. I’m terrified.”
“I’m serious, Ksyusha.” He spread his hands. “You carry everything. Work, the house, Timka. Let me do something decent for once.”
And that was when she agreed.
Not because she believed in miracles, but because someone who had barely slept for four nights would agree to almost anything that removed even one responsibility from her shoulders.
“All right,” Ksenia said. “Organize it. But I’m warning you, if you choose a hotel where the only view of the sea is on the television, I’ll never forgive you.”
“I won’t.”
“And the dates. June twenty-eighth. Not the twenty-ninth. Not ‘give or take a day.’”
“Got it.”
“And two adults. Timka’s staying with Grandma. He has exam preparation sessions.”
“I said I got it,” Artyom repeated, a little more sharply than necessary.
She didn’t notice his tone at the time.
Later, she would replay it in her mind at least two hundred times.
Her mother arrived on Saturday and spread her work folder across the table.
Tamara Ignatyevna had spent thirty years as a forensic handwriting examiner and still occasionally took on contract work in retirement.
When she heard the news, she set down her magnifying glass.
“Artyom? Organizing a vacation?”
“Mom, don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m clarifying the wording. Is he organizing it, or is he saying he’s organizing it?”
“He’s already called someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. He said everything was under control.”
“Ksyusha.” Her mother removed her glasses. “A surprise from a man is always a lottery where you buy the ticket and someone else collects the prize. Check everything.”
“Mom, I inspect pipeline welds for a living. At home, I want to be a human being, not an inspector.”
“One doesn’t exclude the other.”
Ksenia lost her temper.
Quietly, domestically, the way exhausted women do.
She took Vera’s business card from her wallet and silently slipped it into her husband’s jacket pocket.
She said nothing.
Let him decide whether to call.
At least he might end up with a proper travel agent rather than some random website.
Artyom found the card the next morning.
He turned it over in his fingers and snorted.
“Did Gushchina slip this in here or something?” he muttered.
Alyona Gushchina worked in the neighboring department, handled contracts, wore shoes with delicate straps, and for the last six months had, for some reason, been constantly sending him selections of hotels beside turquoise water.
Artyom tucked the business card into his shirt pocket.
He asked his wife nothing.
And that was his first mistake.
The kind that, in industrial inspection, is called a missed defect.
Vera answered the phone at ten in the morning, between appointments.
“Travel agency, Vera speaking. Hello.”
“Hello. Someone recommended you to me. I need a vacation package for two, at the end of June, eight or nine days.”
“Let me write that down. Any preferred destination?”
“Somewhere warm. Preferably by the sea.”
“Preferably?” Vera smiled into the phone. “Most people say the sea is essential.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to be right on the beach. The main thing is that it’s romantic and affordable.”
“I understand. Adults? Children?”
“Two adults.”
Within an hour, he was choosing.
Vera suggested a decent coastal hotel.
He rejected it. Too expensive.
Then she offered a family resort.
He rejected that too.
“That’s for parents with children. We don’t need that.”
Eventually, he settled on a small hotel in town, three kilometers from the water, with a little balcony and flowers along the railing.
“It’s about a forty-minute walk to the sea,” Vera warned him honestly. “Or you can take a bus.”
“But it’s romantic,” he replied.
“Romantic is when a woman doesn’t have to walk forty minutes in sandals under the scorching sun.”
“She’ll understand.”
Vera wrote two words in her notebook.
She’ll understand.
After fifteen years in the business, she knew the type.
Families asked about children’s pools and nearby pharmacies.
Budget travelers asked about kitchens and laundry facilities.
But people who wanted something “romantic, inexpensive, and far from anyone they know” usually had the same reason.
Artyom arrived at her office on Thursday during his lunch break, wearing a freshly ironed shirt and the expression of a man performing a heroic deed.
“Please, have a seat. Artyom Valeryevich Sergeev?”
“Yes.”
“May I have both travelers’ passports, please?”
He placed his passport on the desk.
Vera opened her database and entered his surname.
A complete history appeared on the screen.
Five vacations. The Sergeev family. Two adults and one child. Their last trip had been three seasons earlier.
“Oh, so you’re not a new client after all!” Vera said cheerfully. “You and your wife have traveled through my agency before. Ksenia Andreyevna, correct?”
His face changed.
He didn’t turn red.
Quite the opposite.
He went gray, like unpainted metal.
“We… got divorced,” he said.
“Divorced?”
“Yes. A year ago. We separated.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Vera said evenly. “May I have the second passport?”
He handed it over.
Alyona Sergeyevna Gushchina.
Thirty-one years old.
Vera carefully entered the details, checking every letter.
A lump formed in her throat.
Exactly one year earlier, her own husband had announced that “you only live once” and gone on vacation with a young woman from the sales department.
To a small romantic hotel, as it happened.
“How will you be paying?” Vera asked.
“Bank transfer. To your account. Today or tomorrow.”
“From your own account?”
“Does it matter? Someone will transfer it.”
“It matters to me,” Vera replied. “I have to identify the payer in the contract.”
He hesitated.
“Well… some of my funds are tied up at the moment. An acquaintance will make the transfer.”
“All right. Once the payment arrives, I’ll confirm the booking.”
“When exactly?”
“As soon as the money comes in.”
He left.
Vera remained seated for another minute, staring at the contract.
214,000 rubles.
Two adults.
A small town hotel.
A balcony with flowers along the railing.
The following morning, the payment arrived.
The payment reference read:
Payment under Contract No. … Payer: Ksenia Andreyevna Sergeeva.
Vera read the line three times.
Then she opened the scanned passports of both travelers.
Then the returning customer’s profile.
“So they’re divorced,” she said aloud to the empty office. “And his ex-wife is paying. Out of pure nostalgia, naturally.”
She called the agency’s accounting department and asked them to hold off on confirming the hotel booking.
Then she opened the database and found Ksenia’s number.
Her finger hovered over the call button.
Vera remembered how, a year earlier, everyone had told her:
“Don’t interfere.”
“She’ll figure it out herself.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Maybe they have an arrangement.”
And then she had discovered that three people had known about her husband’s affair.
Three people had known.
And remained silent.
At that very moment, Artyom was sending a message.
Everything’s paid for. We fly out on the 28th. The hotel is like a fairy tale. A balcony covered in flowers.
A minute later, the reply arrived.
You’re my hero. I’m already packing my suitcase.
That evening, he returned home, took off his shoes, and walked into the room where Ksenia was helping her son with trigonometry.
“So how’s the vacation coming along?” she asked without looking up.
“They’re reviewing the request.”
“Who is?”
“The hotel. We’re waiting for confirmation. It’s the procedure.”
“Artyom, I’ve booked vacations through that agency five times. Confirmation usually comes within an hour.”
“Then they must be busy,” he snapped. “Can you just stay out of it? I told you, it’s a surprise.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll even act surprised.”
Ksenia got her surprise two days later.
Vera called on Wednesday at half past seven in the evening, just as Ksenia was walking from the factory gate toward the bus stop, her ultrasonic testing equipment case slung over her shoulder.
“Ksyusha, hi. Can you talk?”
“I can. Unless this is about vacation packages. Then I can’t.”
“It is about vacation packages,” Vera said. “And you’re going to have to listen.”
“Vera, I’m exhausted.”
“Ksyusha. Your husband booked a trip with me. For two people. Leaving June twenty-eighth.”
Ksenia stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Well… yes. He’s organizing it. It’s supposed to be a surprise.”
“It is a surprise,” Vera agreed. “Except that you’re not the second traveler listed on the contract.”
Silence filled the phone for four seconds.
“Say that again.”
“Alyona Sergeyevna Gushchina. Thirty-one years old. He brought me her passport himself. Put it right on my desk.”
“She’s his colleague,” Ksenia said slowly. “She works in the contracts department.”
“Then they have a very close working relationship.”
“Vera, do you understand what you’re saying?”
“I understand perfectly. I’ve been filling out paperwork for a long time. And I would have stayed silent, Ksyusha. I swear I would have, if not for one detail.”
“What detail?”
“The money for the trip came from your account. Two hundred and fourteen thousand rubles. The payer is Ksenia Andreyevna Sergeeva.”
Ksenia lowered her equipment case onto the pavement.
A bus roared past, blasting her with hot air.
“I transferred the money using the bank details he sent me,” she said in a voice that sounded like someone else’s. “I didn’t even look. I was working on an inspection report for a storage tank.”
“I understand.”
“What did he tell you? How did he explain why I wasn’t going?”
Vera hesitated.
“Tell me,” Ksenia said.
“He said you got divorced a year ago.”
“What?”
“Divorced. Separated. Those were his exact words. I asked about you because you’re in my database. He turned pale and said that.”
Ksenia laughed without the slightest trace of amusement.
“Divorced. Wonderful. And who’s paying for him? The ghost of his ex-wife?”
“I asked myself the same question.”
“Vera, do you have everything? The contract, passport details, copies?”
“Everything. The application, the email correspondence, and his signature on the form.”
“Don’t delete anything.”
“Ksyusha,” Vera asked cautiously, “what are you going to do now?”
“Work,” Ksenia replied. “Do what I do best. You see, my profession is finding cracks underneath surfaces that look perfectly smooth and freshly painted.”
She didn’t go home.
She went straight to her mother’s apartment.
Tamara Ignatyevna opened the door, took one look at her daughter, and silently disappeared into the room to fetch her magnifying glass.
As if she’d known all along it would be needed.
“Tell me.”
Ksenia told her everything in the steady voice of someone dictating an inspection report.
“Right,” her mother said. “First question. Which account did the money come from?”
“My debit account. The one my salary goes into.”
“Second. You had a savings deposit for Timofey. The one your father and I helped you build up.”
“Yes. Two hundred and eighty thousand.”
“Check it.”
Ksenia opened her banking app.
Her fingers moved quickly and mechanically, just as they did at work.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“A hundred and eighty thousand is gone. Withdrawn on the eighteenth.”
“By whom?”
“It says an early partial withdrawal. Authorized… by power of attorney.”
“What power of attorney?” Tamara Ignatyevna straightened. “Did you ever give him power of attorney?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Mom, in fifteen years I have never signed a document without reading it first. Occupational hazard.”
Her mother sat opposite her and placed her hands on the table.
Dry hands with short nails.
The hands of a woman who had spent thirty years comparing the pressure, slope, and movement of handwritten letters.
“Here’s what you’re going to do. Tomorrow, go to the bank and request a statement and a copy of the withdrawal authorization. As the account holder, you’re entitled to those documents. Then bring them to me.”
“You think he…”
“I don’t think anything. I work with evidence. But if he accessed a savings account registered in your name without authorization, then he’s not just an adulterer. He’s a thief.”
“Mom, that’s a criminal offense.”
“Yes,” Tamara Ignatyevna said calmly. “It is.”
“He has professional certification. He’s an inspector. He puts his signatures and official stamps on instruments used to calculate people’s bills.”
“All the more interesting for his employer.”
Ksenia took Thursday off.
At the bank, she received a copy of the withdrawal document.
A form.
A date.
An amount.
And a sweeping signature with a distinctive loop, remarkably similar to her own.
Tamara Ignatyevna placed it beneath a desk lamp.
Beside it, she arranged four authentic examples of her daughter’s signature: a loan agreement, a bank card application, and a vehicle power of attorney.
“Look here,” she said twenty minutes later. “The initial stroke. Yours starts from below and moves upward, short and direct. This one begins with a long, exaggerated movement. Next, your capital K never connects to the following letter. Here, it does. And the pen pressure: yours is even, without thickened strokes. This signature shows tremor in the oval.”
“So it’s forged.”
“What I’m saying is that, as a specialist, I can conclude that this signature was made by another person attempting to imitate yours. And yes, Ksyusha, he did a poor job. He was in a hurry.”
Ksenia stared at the paper.
She could feel her anger transforming into something colder.
Something practical.
Something useful.
“Mom. He took our son’s money. To go on vacation with another woman. And he got another two hundred and fourteen thousand from me directly.”
“Exactly.”
“And for three days he lied about the hotel ‘reviewing the application.’”
“Three days,” her mother confirmed. “You said so yourself.”
“You know what’s worst?”
“What?”
“He offered to give me a rest. He actually said, ‘Let me do something decent for once.’ And I believed him. Me. A woman who finds hidden defects beneath three layers of paint with ultrasound.”
“The equipment wasn’t designed for husbands,” Tamara Ignatyevna remarked dryly.
On Friday morning, Ksenia arrived at the travel agency.
Vera met her at the door, locked the office, and spread everything across the desk.
The contract.
Copies of the passports.
Email correspondence.
The payment confirmation.
“What do you want to do?”
“First, I want to ask something. Can you cancel the booking?”
“I can process a cancellation request from you as the payer. There will be penalties. The hotel is already confirmed, and the airline tickets are nonrefundable. You’ll lose around twenty-five percent.”
“Then let them keep twenty-five percent. Where does the rest go?”
“Back to the account it came from. Yours.”
“And if he comes here and makes a scene?”
“Let him.” Vera shrugged. “He’s the one who signed the booking contract, but you paid for it. And I have his signed statement claiming he’s divorced. Do you know what that means?”
“What?”
“It means, Ksyusha, that he dug his own grave.”
“Vera.” Ksenia raised her eyes. “I want you to cancel both places.”
“Both?”
“Both. Not half. Not ‘remove her and leave him.’ The whole booking.”
“And if she wants to go alone?”
“Then she can pay for it herself. I’m not a charity dedicated to transporting other people’s mistresses to warm beaches.”
Vera nodded and began typing.
“I’ll record the cancellation date. I’ll email you the refund calculation. The money should arrive within five business days.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” Vera gave a bitter smile. “I’m not doing this for you.”
“Then who?”
“For the fool I was a year ago, when nobody bothered to tell me the truth.”
Ksenia left the agency at one in the afternoon and called her husband.
“Yes, Ksyusha,” he answered cheerfully. “I’m at a site. Calibrating scales at a supermarket.”
“How’s our vacation coming along?”
“Everything’s progressing. They promised confirmation by Monday.”
“I see. By the way, I went to the bank this morning.”
A pause.
Brief, but Ksenia heard everything in it.
“Why?” he asked.
“I needed a statement for Timka’s savings account. Wanted to check whether we had enough for his August courses.”
“And?”
“And there’s a hundred and eighty thousand missing.”
“That…” He coughed. “That was me. Just temporarily. I’ll put it back.”
“Correct. You will. But right now, I’m interested in something else. What document did you use to withdraw it?”
“Well… there was a power of attorney.”
“From whom?”
“Ksyusha, let’s discuss this at home.”
“From whom, Artyom?”
“From you,” he forced out. “You signed it.”
“I did not.”
“You did. You just don’t remember. You’ve been working all those shifts…”
“Artyom. My mother compared that signature with four genuine examples of mine today. She spent thirty years doing this professionally. Do you know what she concluded?”
Silence.
“Executed by another person in imitation of the original,” Ksenia said. “There’ll be a written expert report, with samples and illustrations. Very impressive.”
He exploded, the way guilty people explode when they’re caught.
“What, are you spying on me now?! You dragged your mother into this?! This is completely unacceptable!”
“What’s unacceptable is stealing money from your son’s savings.”
“I’ll return it next month!”
“With what? You’ve already spent another two hundred and fourteen thousand of my money in June. On a vacation.”
“On our vacation!”
“On your vacation,” Ksenia corrected him. “With Alyona Sergeyevna Gushchina. You brought her passport yourself. Placed it right on Vera Streltsova’s desk.”
The silence on the phone became thick, almost suffocating.
“Ksyusha,” he finally said in a different, coaxing tone, “it’s not what you’ve been told.”
“Nobody told me anything. They showed me the contract.”
“She means nothing to me! She just had vacation days she needed to use. She asked me to help with a booking. I put it in my name to get the returning-customer discount…”
“A returning-customer discount,” Ksenia repeated. “Which you obtained by telling the agent you’re divorced. Brilliant. You found a way to be married and single at the same time, depending on who’s paying.”
“Who told you that?! She had no right to disclose it!”
“She had every right to stop someone from exploiting her customer.”
“I’ll explain everything tonight.”
“Tonight you’ll be busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Reading,” Ksenia replied. “I left three documents on the table for you. The handwriting specialist’s report. A copy of the bank withdrawal authorization. And the cancellation confirmation.”
“What cancellation?!” he shouted.
And then she said it.
Calmly.
Clearly.
In the level voice she used during production meetings when announcing a defect serious enough to reject an entire job.
“I canceled both tickets. Your mistress can pay for her own vacation.”
“You had no right—”
“I did. I was the payer. They deducted the cancellation penalties. The rest is coming back to me. Your name wasn’t on the payment receipt anywhere, Artyom. After all, you’re divorced and short of cash.”
“Ksenia!”
“And one more thing. My mother filed a formal complaint today concerning the forged signature and unauthorized withdrawal from the savings account. It was registered at noon. We have the reference number. She also sent a copy of her findings to your professional certification commission, as a matter of civic responsibility.”
“To WHERE?!”
“To the people who authorize you to put official certification stamps on measuring instruments. They tend to take a very keen interest in people who forge signatures.”
And she hung up.
He arrived home around nine that evening, yanking at the door handle.
The door wouldn’t open.
The locks had already been changed.
The locksmith had come at four.
“Ksenia! Open the door! This is my apartment!”
The door opened.
Tamara Ignatyevna stood in the doorway.
“Good evening, Artyom Valeryevich.”
“Tamara Ignatyevna, you… Step aside, please. I’m coming in.”
“No, you aren’t. Ksenia inherited this apartment from her grandfather before the marriage. You were registered here as a family member. An application to remove you from the address register has already been submitted.”
“You have no right!”
“We do. And while we’re at it, I’d appreciate it if you addressed me politely throughout an entire sentence, not just when it suits you. Good manners are the only thing you can still afford.”
Ksenia appeared from the hallway.
She was carrying two sports bags.
“Your things are here. Documents, laptop, razor, all your miscellaneous junk. Everything has been counted and inventoried.”
“Ksyusha.” He stepped forward. “Let’s talk like normal people. Without your mother. Without lawyers. Fifteen years, after all.”
“Fifteen years,” she agreed. “And for the last six months, you’ve been searching for a hotel with a flower-covered balcony. Forty minutes from the sea. ‘She’ll understand.’ By the way, did she?”
“What?”
“I asked whether Alyona Sergeyevna understood that the beach was a forty-minute walk away. Or did you tell her that was romantic too?”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m reporting the facts, just like in an inspection report.”
He tried another approach.
His voice dropped to the soft whisper people use when speaking to someone frightened.
“Ksyusha, think about our son. Timka needs his father.”
“Timka needed a hundred and eighty thousand rubles for courses and a physics tutor. You decided to spend it on your mistress.”
“I’ll pay it back!”
“You will. Through a court enforcement order. I prefer it that way. The interest gets calculated automatically. No promises required.”
“You’re destroying me!”
“Artyom. Your own lust destroyed you.”
His phone vibrated in his pocket.
He glanced at the screen automatically.
Ksenia saw his cheek twitch.
“What?” she asked. “Did she message you?”
“Who?”
“Alyona Sergeyevna. She received the cancellation notice this morning. I’m sure she’s wondering what’s happening.”
“How do you…”
“Vera sent notices to both travelers. That’s standard procedure. By the way, I asked her to include the full reason: ‘At the request of payer Ksenia A. Sergeeva, wife of the booking customer.’ I thought she deserved to know whose money was supposed to take her to the beach.”
At last, he completely lost control.
He began breathing heavily and stepped toward the doorway.
“You’re ruining my life over some stupid trip!”
“No,” Ksenia replied. “I’ve simply stopped paying for it.”
After that, events unfolded quickly, like a calculation once the formula is known.
On Monday, Artyom was summoned to Human Resources.
The handwriting examiner’s findings, attached to the complaint, had landed on the desk of the department head.
He was suspended from certification duties that same day.
A man whose signature on inspection certificates was supposed to guarantee accuracy could hardly continue in that role while being investigated over a forged signature.
Three weeks later, his professional certification was revoked.
Alyona Gushchina went on vacation after all.
Alone.
She bought a last-minute package with her own money and posted in the company group chat that she “did not intend to discuss personal matters.”
She returned tanned and unusually quiet.
A month later, she transferred to another branch.
The refund reached Ksenia’s account on Wednesday.
A little over 160,000 rubles.
She added money of her own and deposited it into Timofey’s savings account.
“Mom, where’s Dad?” her son asked one evening, putting aside his math workbook.
“At his mother’s. On Polevaya Street.”
“For good?”
“For now, yes.”
“Because of the money?”
Ksenia looked at him carefully.
Lying to a fifteen-year-old boy who already knew how to do the math seemed like the worst possible choice.
“Because of a signature,” she said. “He signed my name to a decision I never made. That’s called forgery, Tim. And this isn’t just an argument between your parents. It’s a criminal offense.”
“So what am I supposed to tell people if they ask?”
“The truth. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Artyom came back twice.
The first time, he brought flowers and claimed that he’d been “temporarily possessed by madness.”
The second time, he brought a list of marital assets and announced:
“I’ll sue you for half the apartment.”
“No, you won’t,” Ksenia told him through the doorway. “There’s a will, the date I inherited the property, and proof that I paid for the renovations. My mother has already prepared a collection of relevant court decisions. She’s spent more time in courtrooms than you’ve spent on vacation.”
“You brought her into this on purpose! She hates me!”
“She doesn’t hate you, Artyom Valeryevich,” Tamara Ignatyevna called from behind her daughter. “She examined you. It’s a professional habit. Nothing personal.”
“You ruined my life!”
“We gave your life back to you,” Tamara Ignatyevna replied. “Without a wife, without her money, and without someone else’s signature. Now try living in your own handwriting.”
The divorce was finalized in September.
There was practically nothing to divide, apart from a secondhand car.
The court awarded the car to Artyom, along with the obligation to repay 180,000 rubles.
On June twenty-eighth, what would have been her fifteenth wedding anniversary, Ksenia wasn’t by the sea.
She was at work.
Inspecting a welded joint on a storage tank.
She found a four-millimeter-deep lack-of-fusion defect and stopped the acceptance process.
The foreman cursed.
The workshop manager called the director.
And Ksenia stood there, studying a weld that looked absolutely flawless from the outside.
“But it’s beautiful,” the foreman said. “Nice and even.”
“Beautiful,” Ksenia agreed. “Except there’s nothing holding it together inside. You can’t fix something like that. You have to cut it out.”
That evening, Ksenia and Vera sat at a café beside the river.
“Any regrets?” Vera asked.
“About what?”
“Well… fifteen years.”
“I regret two days,” Ksenia said with a faint smile. “The two days when I believed he could actually organize something himself.”
“And I regret that nobody told me the truth a year ago.”
“That’s why you called me.”
“That’s why I called.”
Vera raised her glass of lemonade.
“To the people who pay the bills.”
“To the people who pay the bills,” Ksenia agreed. “And to those who finally learn to read what they’re paying for.”