“I’m Going on Vacation with My Ex-Wife,” Her Husband Announced. Lisa Smiled and Showed Him Two Tickets: “Perfect! My Boss Just Invited Me to Dubai.”
Lisa was defrosting the freezer with a hair dryer. Her grandmother had always done it that way: placing a basin beneath the refrigerator, spreading old towels across the floor, and blasting the thick layer of ice with hot air until it began breaking off in chunks.
The ice fell into the basin with dull thuds. Water gathered on the floor, and somehow the kitchen smelled of snow and fish at the same time, even though there hadn’t been any fish in the freezer since last winter.
Igor entered the kitchen just as a particularly large chunk broke away from the back wall. He stepped over a towel, poured himself a glass of filtered water, and stood by the window, staring out into the courtyard.
“Lisa, turn that off for a minute. We need to talk.”
She switched off the hair dryer. In the silence, they could hear water dripping.
“I’m listening.”
“I’m going on vacation,” he said without turning around. “At the end of the month. To Turkey, for ten days.”
“Oh,” Lisa said. “That’s great. I was just wondering where we should go this year. My vacation starts on the twentieth.”
“No, Lisa. You don’t understand. I’m not going with you.”
She placed the hair dryer on the windowsill.
“Then who are you going with?”
Igor turned around. His face wore an expression Lisa had learned to recognize perfectly over fifteen years of marriage: a mixture of guilt and stubbornness.
It was the same expression he had worn when admitting he’d broken her favorite cup, lent a friend thirty thousand rubles, or forgotten to pick her up from the hospital after knee surgery.
“I’m going on vacation with my ex-wife,” he said. “With Zhanna. And Maxim. You understand, Max is turning twenty-five. It’s a milestone birthday. He wants his parents together, at least once. It’s important to him. Zhanna has been falling apart since her divorce. She needs a change of scenery. And… well, I’ve already agreed.”
Lisa stared at him.
A piece of ice cracked inside the basin beneath the refrigerator.
Fifteen years earlier, when they had first met, Igor had already been divorced for three years.
According to him, Zhanna was a difficult, loud, easily offended woman. She had forbidden him from seeing their son, demanded money beyond child support, and called at two in the morning to announce that he had ruined her life.
Lisa had endured all of it.
For fifteen years, she had baked Maxim birthday pies, bought him sneakers, and attended his graduation ceremony when Zhanna had deliberately refused to show up.
Then, six months earlier, Zhanna had suddenly started calling Igor every day. Sweetly. As though they were old friends.
It had started right after her second husband left her for a younger woman.
“I see,” Lisa said.
Igor blinked.
He had clearly expected something different. A scandal. Tears. Doors slamming.
He stood there with his chest full of air, ready to defend himself.
“Lisa, please don’t be upset. It’s not what you think. It’s for my son.”
“I’m not upset, Igor.”
She wiped her hands on a towel, walked into the hallway, took her phone from her handbag, returned to the kitchen, and turned the screen toward him.
Two electronic airline tickets appeared on the display.
Yekaterinburg — Dubai.
Departure: the twenty-second.
Lisa smiled.
“Perfect! My boss just invited me to Dubai.”
Igor stared at the screen for so long that the phone went dark.
Lisa unlocked it again.
“What boss?” he finally managed to ask.
“Boris Yevgenyevich. My supervisor.”
“Your supervisor?!” Igor’s voice jumped an octave. “What supervisor? That gray-haired man with the little beard? The one who recited poetry to you at the company party?”
“He wasn’t reciting poetry to me. He was reciting it to the entire department. At the company’s anniversary celebration. Yesenin.”
“And you’re going to Dubai with him?”
“Yes.”
“Just the two of you?!”
Lisa shrugged and switched the hair dryer back on, aiming it at the frozen wall.
“Igor, you’re going with Zhanna. Just the two of you. Well, three, counting Maxim. I’m not asking whether you’ll be sharing a hotel room.”
“Separate rooms, of course! What are you talking about?!”
“Well, we’ll probably have separate rooms too.”
“Probably?!”
Lisa switched off the hair dryer.
“Igor, I’m forty-eight years old. In fifteen years, I haven’t traveled anywhere farther than Anapa. You were always telling me we didn’t have enough money. That we needed to save for new windows, a car, renovations. And now, suddenly, you’ve found enough money to take your ex-wife to Turkey. Meanwhile, I’ve been given an opportunity to fly to Dubai. For free, by the way.”
“What do you mean, free?”
“Exactly what I said. You’ll find out if you want to.”
She turned back toward the freezer.
The final piece of ice broke loose and splashed into the basin.
In reality, everything was much simpler and less exciting than Igor imagined.
The company where Lisa had worked for eight years as a supplier relations manager organized an annual competition between departments.
The winning department received a reward trip.
This year, the purchasing department had won.
Lisa had personally negotiated an incredibly difficult contract with Chinese packaging suppliers, saving the company four million rubles. For six months, she hadn’t left the office before nine in the evening.
The prize was a trip for the department head and one employee of his choosing.
Boris Yevgenyevich, a sixty-one-year-old widower and a considerate, old-fashioned gentleman, had called Lisa into his office a week before her conversation with Igor.
“Elizaveta Andreyevna, please sit down. I have a proposal for you. Don’t be alarmed,” he added awkwardly, adjusting his glasses. “We’ve been awarded two trips to Dubai. Six days. Hotel, excursions, everything paid for. The rules say the department head and the best employee get to go. And you’re our best employee, without question. Would you like to come?”
“Boris Yevgenyevich, what about you?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t like hot weather. Or airplanes. But the director insists. Something about representing the company and meeting partners from the Emirates. So I have to go. But don’t worry. Separate rooms, a packed itinerary. You’ll be relaxing while I suffer through business negotiations.”
Lisa laughed.
“Boris Yevgenyevich, I’d be delighted.”
“Wonderful. Just make sure your husband doesn’t get jealous. I’m an old man. I can’t get into fights anymore. My back wouldn’t survive it.”
The tickets arrived by email two days later.
Lisa kept meaning to tell Igor, but always postponed it.
Sometimes he was tired. Sometimes irritated. Sometimes he sat staring at his phone until midnight, and whenever she said, “Igor, there’s something I need to tell you,” he replied, “Later, Lisa. Later.”
And now she hadn’t needed to explain anything.
She had simply shown him the screen.
That evening, Igor couldn’t sit still.
He wandered from the living room to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the balcony.
He even smoked, although he’d quit three years earlier.
Lisa watched a television series and pretended not to notice.
“Lisa,” he finally said, standing in the doorway. “You planned this on purpose, didn’t you? Just to make me angry?”
“Planned what?”
“This Dubai business.”
“Igor, I have tickets. Flight numbers. My name. You saw them yourself.”
“Where did you get the money?”
“I already told you. It’s free. It’s a company reward. Boris Yevgenyevich and I are from the department of the year.”
Igor fell silent.
“Couldn’t he have gone alone?”
“The prize is for two people. The department head and the best employee. And the best employee is me.”
“The best…” He snorted. “Of course. And naturally, he chose you for no particular reason. Just because you have pretty eyes.”
Lisa paused her television series.
“Igor. For six months, I worked until nine every evening. You never once asked why. You never asked what project I was working on, how it was going, or whether I was exhausted. You never once came to pick me up from work. And now you’re suddenly interested in why I was chosen?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
“I was chosen because of a contract worth four million rubles,” Lisa said. “Not because of my eyes. Although, for the record, my eyes are beautiful too. You just haven’t looked at them in a very long time.”
The next day, Lisa called her sister.
Olya was six years younger, lived in Kamensk-Uralsky, worked as a kindergarten teacher, and always seemed to know everything about everybody.
“Lisa, are you serious? He actually said he was going with his ex?”
“That’s exactly what he said.”
“And you?”
“I showed him my tickets.”
Olya burst into such loud laughter that Lisa had to move the phone away from her ear.
“Oh, I can’t breathe! Lisa, you’re my hero! What did he do?”
“He smoked on the balcony. He hadn’t smoked for three years.”
“Serves him right. Listen, what about this Boris Yevgenyevich of yours? What’s he like? Is he handsome?”
“Olya! He’s sixty-one, he’s a widower, he wears sweater vests, and he quotes Yesenin.”
“Well, that’s wonderful! That’s rare! Men these days don’t even know who Yesenin is. All they know is sports betting and where to find discounted beer.”
“Olya, it’s a business trip.”
“Of course it is. Listen, Lisa, I’ll tell you something. For fifteen years, you’ve been convenient. Igor got used to you always being home, always having dinner ready, always forgiving everything. And people don’t appreciate a woman who’s always convenient. They use her. Like a stool. It sits quietly in the corner, and nobody pays attention. But when the stool suddenly gets up and flies to Dubai, that’s when a man starts wondering what he’s going to sit on.”
Lisa laughed.
“Olya, you’re a philosopher.”
“I’m a kindergarten teacher, Lisa. I’ve spent twenty years watching little boys snatch toys from little girls. Then they act surprised when the girls stop wanting to play with them.”
Two days later, Igor appeared at Lisa’s workplace.
She spotted him through the glass wall of the conference room.
He was standing near reception in his work jacket, nervously twisting his cap in his hands and looking around.
“Elizaveta Andreyevna,” the secretary, Ksenia, said, peeking through the doorway. “Your husband is here. He’s asking for Boris Yevgenyevich.”
Lisa felt cold all over.
By the time she managed to leave the meeting room, Igor was already inside Boris Yevgenyevich’s office.
The door was slightly open.
Lisa stopped in the hallway.
“…I just want to look you in the eyes,” Igor was saying loudly. Far too loudly. “So I know exactly who my wife is going to Dubai with.”
“Well, look,” Boris Yevgenyevich replied calmly. “Go ahead, young man. Let me take off my glasses first. Otherwise, you’ll just see your own reflection.”
A pause followed.
“Had a good look?”
“You…” Igor seemed completely thrown off. “Why did you choose her, specifically?”
“Because she’s the best employee in our department. That’s easy to verify. The official announcement is hanging on our notice board, complete with the company stamp. Would you like me to show you? Your wife saved this company four million rubles this year. Frankly, I’m surprised you don’t know that. If I were you, I’d be proud of her. I’d be telling every neighbor.”
“I am proud of her…”
“Then why are you here?”
Igor said nothing.
“Listen, Igor… What’s your patronymic?”
“Nikolayevich.”
“Igor Nikolayevich. I’m sixty-one years old. I spent thirty-four years with one woman before she passed away. I know what jealousy looks like. Usually, it looks like fear. Fear that something you consider yours might not actually belong to you.”
He paused.
“But I’m not the person you should be afraid of. I’m old, I have a bad back, and I’ll spend most of my time in Dubai sitting in an air-conditioned hotel room taking blood-pressure medication.”
“What you should be afraid of is the day your wife realizes that she can have a perfectly good life on her own. Believe me, that’s far more frightening than any rival.”
Lisa stepped away from the door and hurried to the restroom before anyone could see her face.
She was crying and laughing at the same time.
That evening, Igor said nothing to her.
He simply stood on the balcony for a long time.
He didn’t smoke.
He just stood there.
Three days later, Lisa reached for the small wooden box on the high storage shelf.
She and Igor kept their cash savings there.
They’d been doing it since the early years of their marriage, setting money aside for major expenses.
For the past two years, they had been saving to replace their windows.
The old wooden frames let in so much cold air that frost formed on the windowsills during winter.
According to Lisa’s calculations, there should have been around three hundred thousand rubles inside.
Instead, the box contained twenty-two thousand rubles and a handwritten note from Igor:
“Borrowed temporarily. I’ll pay it back.”
Lisa sat down on the stool beneath the shelf.
When Igor came home from work, the open box was waiting on the kitchen table.
“What’s this?” Lisa asked.
Igor looked at the box, then at her.
He sat down.
“Well… I needed to pay for the vacation packages.”
“Whose vacation packages, Igor?”
“Well, ours. To Turkey.”
“Ours? Whose, exactly?”
“Mine, Max’s… and Zhanna’s.”
“You paid for your ex-wife’s vacation using the money we’ve been saving for two years to replace our windows?”
“Lisa, I’ll pay it back! I wrote that it was temporary!”
“Igor, do you understand that this is our money? Both of ours. Half of it is mine. Every month, I put part of my salary into that box. And you took the money without asking and spent it on another woman.”
“She’s not just another woman! She’s the mother of my son!”
“She’s your ex-wife, Igor. Your ex-wife. The word ‘ex’ means you no longer owe her anything. Except the child support you paid until Maxim turned eighteen. And Maxim is twenty-five.”
“She’s having a hard time right now! Her second husband left her! She’s all alone!”
“And I’m not having a hard time? I’ve been freezing beside those windows for fifteen years!”
Igor jumped to his feet.
“Why are you so obsessed with those stupid windows?! You’ve lived with them for fifteen years! You can live with them a little longer!”
He stormed out of the kitchen and slammed the bedroom door.
Lisa remained sitting beside the open box.
Twenty-two thousand rubles.
And a note promising to pay the rest back.
The next day, during her lunch break, Lisa visited the company’s lawyer.
Yulia Olegovna was young and strict, with rimless glasses.
She listened without interrupting.
“Elizaveta Andreyevna, unfortunately, situations like this are quite common. Here’s how it works. Money accumulated during marriage is marital property. Both spouses have equal rights to it.”
“If one spouse spends that money on something unrelated to the family’s needs, for example, on an ex-wife, without the other spouse’s consent, that can be taken into consideration during divorce proceedings.”
“How exactly?”
“During the division of property, you can argue that your husband used shared funds for purposes that didn’t benefit the family. If you can prove it, the court may account for that money as part of his share.”
“In simple terms, the court may consider that money already received by him. And when the remaining property is divided, you could receive a larger portion to compensate for half that amount.”
“How can I prove it?”
“Do you have the note? Is it in his handwriting?”
“Yes.”
“Keep it. That’s already an acknowledgment that he took the money. If you have messages, travel agency receipts, bank transfers, save those too. Better still, record him admitting it himself. You can record your own conversation with your husband. That’s not prohibited as long as you’re participating in it.”
Lisa nodded.
“Yulia Olegovna, I’m not planning to get divorced. I just… I want to understand what I have.”
Yulia Olegovna removed her glasses.
“Elizaveta Andreyevna, knowing what you have is one of the most useful things a married woman can do. Whether she’s planning to divorce or not.”
Then Maxim called.
He almost never called Lisa except to wish her a happy New Year or congratulate her on International Women’s Day.
She was surprised.
“Aunt Lisa, hi. Can I talk to you? Just don’t tell Dad, okay?”
“Of course, Maxim. What’s happened?”
He hesitated.
“Aunt Lisa, did Dad tell you the three of us are going to Turkey for my birthday?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Well, here’s the thing. I’m not going anywhere. I only found out about this Turkey trip the day before yesterday. Mom called and said that if Dad asks, I should tell him I’m going too, because otherwise he won’t go.”
“But my birthday… I’m celebrating with Nastya. My girlfriend. We’re going to St. Petersburg for two days. I told both of them last month.”
Lisa slowly lowered herself into a chair.
“So… does Igor know you’re not going?”
“I don’t know, Aunt Lisa. Maybe Mom told him I’d join them at the last minute. She’s good at that. She always does things like this.”
“I just… I feel bad about it. You’ve always been good to me. Those cherry pies you used to bake. I remember them. And I don’t want anyone using me to hurt you.”
“Maxim,” Lisa said, “thank you. Really.”
“Aunt Lisa… Is it true you’re going to Dubai? Dad told Mom, and she told me. Mom’s furious. She says you’re doing it on purpose.”
Lisa laughed.
“It’s true, Maxim. I’m going. But not on purpose. It’s just a coincidence.”
“That’s awesome,” Maxim said. “Bring me some dates, okay? They say the ones there are the best.”
That evening, Lisa waited until Igor had finished dinner.
“Igor, is Maxim definitely going to Turkey with you?”
He looked up from his plate.
“Of course. Why?”
“No reason. I just wanted to check. I thought he was going to St. Petersburg with Nastya for his birthday.”
Igor frowned.
“How do you know that?”
“He told me himself. A month ago, when I wanted to wish him a happy birthday in advance. Don’t you remember? He told you too.”
It was a small lie.
But Lisa decided she was entitled to one after discovering the note that said I’ll pay it back.
Igor slowly set down his fork.
He picked up his phone, dialed a number, and walked into the hallway.
Lisa heard fragments of the conversation.
“Zhanna, is Max definitely going with us?… What do you mean, he’ll join us later?… Join us when? He’s going to St. Petersburg!… Zhanna, you told me he asked for this himself!… You told me it was important to him!… Wait… Wait, stop shouting…”
He returned to the kitchen twenty minutes later.
His face was gray and bewildered.
“She said Max changed his mind,” he said quietly. “That he’ll join us for the last three days. Maybe.”
“Igor,” Lisa said gently, “do you actually believe that?”
He didn’t answer.
He sat down and stared at his empty plate for a long time.
The next day, Zhanna called Lisa.
For the first time in fifteen years.
Lisa didn’t recognize the number, but she recognized the voice immediately.
Low and slightly husky, with that particular condescending tone some luxury boutique saleswomen use when speaking to customers who obviously can’t afford anything in the store.
“Elizaveta? This is Zhanna. We need to talk. Woman to woman.”
“I’m listening.”
“I want you to understand something. I’m not trying to steal your husband. Igor and I simply need some time together for our son’s sake. We share a child. We share a past.”
“You wouldn’t understand. You and Igor don’t have children.”
Lisa felt something tighten painfully inside her.
It was true that she and Igor didn’t have children.
They hadn’t been able to.
They had tried for eight years before finally stopping.
Only their closest loved ones knew.
That meant Igor had told Zhanna.
That meant they had discussed her.
“Zhanna,” Lisa replied evenly, “your shared child isn’t going to Turkey. He’s going to St. Petersburg with his girlfriend. He told me himself.”
Silence.
“He’s doing that to spite you! He’s always taken your side. You bought his affection with those pies of yours.”
“I didn’t buy his affection with food. I fed him. When you forgot to.”
“How dare you!” Zhanna’s voice rose to a shriek. “You ruined my entire life! You stole my husband!”
“Zhanna, you and Igor divorced three years before I even met him. By then, you were already married to Oleg. I didn’t steal anyone from you. I simply picked up what you threw away.”
“And now that Oleg has thrown you away, you’ve decided to come back and take it again. But life doesn’t work that way.”
Zhanna hung up.
For a long time afterward, Lisa sat alone in the kitchen and thought.
Not about Zhanna.
About the fact that Igor had told his ex-wife they couldn’t have children.
The most painful thing in their marriage.
The quietest thing.
The thing they barely discussed even with each other.
It was worse than Turkey.
Worse than the missing savings.
Worse than everything.
Two days before Lisa’s departure, Igor came home carrying an enormous bouquet of roses.
Red roses, with long stems.
In fifteen years, Lisa had never received flowers like those from him.
“Lisa,” he said from the doorway. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve canceled it.”
“Canceled what?”
“Turkey. Everything. Zhanna caused a huge scene, but I said no. I want to be with you. Maybe we could go somewhere together? Sochi? Or Kazan? You always wanted to visit Kazan.”
Lisa accepted the bouquet and smelled the flowers.
They smelled like the refrigerated display case in a flower shop.
“Igor, did you get the money back for the vacation packages?”
He hesitated.
“Well… not all of it. There’s a cancellation penalty. They’ll return about forty thousand. Maybe fifty.”
“And the other two hundred thousand?”
“Well… it’s gone.”
“Our windows are gone, Igor.”
“Lisa, I’ll earn the money back! I promise! Just please… don’t go to Dubai. Please. Stay here.”
Lisa placed the roses in a bucket because none of her vases was tall enough to hold them.
“Igor, do you know what I thought when you told me you were going to Turkey with Zhanna?”
“I wondered what would happen if I said the same thing to you. If I announced that I was going on vacation with my ex-husband.”
“Would you wish me a nice holiday? Or would you smash something?”
He remained silent.
“There’s your answer,” Lisa said.
“I’m going, Igor. This isn’t revenge. It’s my work. My contract. My reward. I earned it.”
“And I want, for once in my life, to see the sea without having to worry about whether I can afford a corn cob from a beach vendor.”
“What about me?”
“You, Igor, can stay home and think. Calculate how much new windows cost. Figure out when we’ll buy them.”
“It’ll do you good.”
The evening before her flight, Lisa packed her suitcase.
It was an old suitcase from the days when she used to visit her aunt in Anapa.
One handle had broken off, and Igor had once wrapped it with electrical tape.
She filled it with summer dresses bought on sale, a wide-brimmed hat, and enough sunscreen to protect an entire army platoon.
Igor stood in the bedroom doorway, watching.
“Lisa, do you need a headscarf over there? Isn’t it strict?”
“No. Tourists don’t have to wear one. You just need to cover your shoulders in certain places. I checked.”
“What about a swimsuit?”
Lisa took a brand-new swimsuit out of a shopping bag.
It was dark blue, modestly cut, with white trim.
She had bought it during her lunch break at the shopping center opposite her office.
She had spent half an hour standing in front of the fitting-room mirror, hardly believing the woman looking back at her was herself.
Igor looked at the swimsuit.
Then at Lisa.
“It’s beautiful,” he said hoarsely.
“Thank you.”
“Lisa… Have you ever shown me a swimsuit before?”
She thought for a moment.
“The last time was about eight years ago, I think. You told me I looked like I was wearing a diving suit and reminded me that I wasn’t twenty anymore.”
Igor turned bright red.
“I said that?”
“You did. I threw the swimsuit away afterward. And I never bought another one.”
He stood there a little longer.
Then he approached, picked up the suitcase by its electrical-tape-wrapped handle, and weighed it in his hand.
“It’s heavy. I’ll drive you to the airport tomorrow.”
“Boris Yevgenyevich is picking me up in a taxi. The company is paying.”
“I’ll drive you,” Igor said stubbornly. “I’m your husband. I’ll take you.”
And he did.
They drove in silence all the way to Koltsovo Airport.
At the terminal entrance, he handed her the suitcase, awkwardly kissed her cheek, and said:
“Just… call me. If anything happens.”
“If what happens, Igor?”
“Well… if you just feel like calling.”
On the twenty-second, Lisa flew to Dubai.
Dubai overwhelmed her the moment she stepped off the plane.
The heat felt as though someone had opened an enormous oven.
The sky was pale and vast.
Skyscrapers rose out of the sand like pencils standing in a glass.
Boris Yevgenyevich, just as he had promised, was suffering.
He couldn’t stand the heat.
He walked around wearing a sun hat with a damp handkerchief around his neck.
During meetings with business partners, he smiled politely.
In the evenings, he told Lisa stories about his late wife, Vera, who had dreamed all her life of seeing the desert but never had the chance.
“Elizaveta Andreyevna,” he said one evening as they sat on the waterfront watching lights appear across the water. “Forgive me for asking, but are you happy? With your husband?”
Lisa was silent for a long time.
“I don’t know, Boris Yevgenyevich. A month ago, I would have said yes. Everything was fine. Like everyone else’s marriage. But now… I don’t know.”
“You know, my Vera always used to say, ‘Borya, you don’t learn who someone really is when everything is going well. You learn when they have to make a choice.’”
He looked toward the water.
“I suppose I made the wrong choices. Work, work, always work. And she kept dreaming about the desert. I thought we’d have time.”
“We didn’t.”
He sighed.
“Don’t repeat my mistakes. Or anyone else’s.”
On the third day, they went on a desert excursion.
The jeeps raced over sand dunes.
Lisa screamed like a little girl, grabbed the handrail, and laughed until tears streamed down her cheeks.
That evening, at a Bedouin camp, she sat on a carpet, ate dates, and gazed at the stars.
There were more stars than she had ever seen in her life.
Her phone beeped.
A message from Igor.
“Lisa. I’ve ordered the new windows. The installer came to measure everything. They’ll be fitted in three weeks. I took out a loan. I’ll pay it myself. Forgive me. I’m an idiot. I finally understand.”
Lisa stared at the screen for a long time.
Then she photographed the stars and sent him the picture.
No caption.
A minute later, his reply arrived.
“Beautiful. I wish I were there.”
She didn’t answer.
Let him feel some regret.
Sometimes regret is exactly what a person needs.
On their final day, Boris Yevgenyevich took Lisa to an old market selling gold and spices.
Narrow covered streets.
Shop windows filled with sparkling bracelets and necklaces as thick as fingers.
Vendors calling out in Russian, “Natasha, come inside! Special discount!”
The air smelled of saffron, cinnamon, and dried roses.
“Choose something, Elizaveta Andreyevna,” Boris Yevgenyevich said. “You’re entitled to a bonus. I negotiated it with the director. Cash, in dirhams.”
“Spend it on yourself. Only yourself. Agreed?”
“Boris Yevgenyevich, I don’t know how to spend money on myself.”
“Then learn. It’s never too late.”
Lisa wandered through the market for a long time.
She tried on silk scarves, smelled little bags of tea, and bargained for dates to bring Maxim.
Then she stopped outside a small jewelry shop.
An elderly jeweler sat behind a counter with a magnifying loupe pressed to one eye.
On a velvet cushion lay a pair of earrings.
Simple, delicate gold drops.
She bought them.
The first piece of jewelry she’d ever purchased entirely for herself.
Not as a birthday present.
Not for International Women’s Day.
Not by asking, “Igor, maybe I could get these?” only to hear, “Lisa, why do you need those? We don’t have the money.”
She bought them herself.
With her own money.
Money she’d earned through her own work.
Boris Yevgenyevich watched her put them on in front of a little mirror in the shop.
He smiled.
“Vera would have approved,” he said. “She always said a woman who can buy her own earrings will never be completely lost.”
That evening, back at the hotel, Lisa called Igor.
She called him herself.
He answered after the first ring, as though he’d been holding the phone in his hand.
“Lisa! How are you?”
“Good. I bought earrings.”
“What kind of earrings?”
“Gold ones. For myself. Bought them myself.”
He was silent.
“Lisa, why didn’t you ever buy yourself earrings before?”
“Because you always said we didn’t have the money.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
Then Igor said quietly:
“But apparently, there was money for Zhanna.”
“Apparently, there was.”
“Lisa, I’ll pick you up at the airport. I promise. You land at nine forty. I checked.”
Igor was waiting for her at Koltsovo Airport.
He was holding a bouquet.
This time, daisies.
Years ago, during their first year together, Lisa had told him daisies were her favorite flowers.
Apparently, he remembered.
“How was the flight?”
“Good.”
“Where’s your Boris?”
“Boris Yevgenyevich went home in a taxi. His back hurts. And he’s not my Boris, Igor.”
Igor nodded.
He took her suitcase.
They drove in silence for a long time.
Finally, he spoke.
“Zhanna called. She said I’d betrayed her. Said I was completely under your thumb. Said I’d ruined her life. For the second time.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told her I wasn’t the one who ruined her life. That I don’t owe her anything. That I have a wife.”
“And then I hung up.”
Lisa looked at him.
“Igor, do you understand why she arranged all of this? The Turkey trip? Using Maxim?”
“I do,” he said heavily. “Oleg left her. She needed to prove to herself that somebody still wanted her.”
“And she chose me.”
“Because I… because I’ve always fallen for it. Fifteen years ago, she made my life miserable, and I still came running every time she called.”
“I thought it was because of Max. But it wasn’t about Max.”
“It was just… a habit. A bad one.”
“Habits can be changed,” Lisa said.
“They can,” he agreed. “It’s just that sometimes you realize too late that you should have changed them years ago.”
They drove another five kilometers.
Gray fields, small patches of woodland, and occasional gas stations passed outside the windows.
Lisa stared at the road and finally found the courage to ask.
“Igor. Why did you tell Zhanna that we couldn’t have children? That we’d been trying?”
He suddenly slowed down.
The car swerved.
Someone behind them honked.
“How do you…”
“She called me before I left. And she said, ‘You wouldn’t understand. You and Igor don’t have children.’”
“The way she said it, Igor. As though it were a sentence. As though there were something defective about me.”
Igor pulled onto the shoulder and switched off the engine.
He sat gripping the steering wheel for a long time.
“I didn’t tell her, Lisa. I mean… it happened a long time ago. Maybe ten years ago.”
“I got drunk at Max’s graduation party. She was walking me to a taxi. And I told her that I was miserable, that we couldn’t have a baby, that you cried at night.”
“I didn’t think she’d remember.”
“I never imagined she’d use it like that someday.”
“She remembered, Igor. People like her remember everything. So they can use it to hurt someone when the time comes.”
“Forgive me,” he said.
And suddenly he began to cry.
In fifteen years, Lisa had never once seen him cry.
“Forgive me. I’m such an idiot. All my life, I thought Zhanna was just part of my past. Something that was still somewhere nearby.”
“But she… she’s kept me on a hook this entire time.”
“And I didn’t even notice.”
Lisa took his hand.
It was cold.
“Let’s go home, Igor. They’ll install the new windows soon. We’ll see whether they let in any drafts.”
“They won’t,” he said, sniffling. “I asked the installer three times.”
The new windows were installed three weeks later.
White plastic frames, with wide windowsills.
That winter, for the first time in fifteen years, no frost formed on them.
Igor pays off the loan himself.
Every month.
Without being reminded.
Lisa never threw away the note that said I’ll pay it back.
It still lies inside the wooden box on the high storage shelf, alongside their new savings.
Just in case.
Maxim returned from St. Petersburg with his girlfriend, Nastya.
She turned out to be a cheerful, red-haired young woman who loved cherry pies just as much as he did.
Lisa brought Maxim dates from Dubai.
The very best ones, in a golden box.
As for Zhanna, Igor no longer speaks to her.
At all.
He says he’s had enough.
He deleted her number in front of Lisa, entirely on his own, without waiting for her to ask.
After their trip, Boris Yevgenyevich hung a photograph in his office.
It showed sand dunes at sunset, a jeep, and a tiny figure wearing a sun hat in the background.
One day, Lisa asked him why he’d chosen that particular photograph.
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he answered:
“I’m showing Vera the desert. She would have laughed at me wearing that ridiculous hat.”
Lisa wears her little gold drop earrings every day.
Whenever Igor notices them, he looks away.
She suspects he still feels ashamed.
And Lisa believes that’s exactly how it should be.
Sometimes she wonders what would have happened if she’d caused a huge scene that day.
If she’d cried, screamed, and forbidden Igor from going.
He probably would have gone anyway.
Out of spite.
Because when someone shouts at you, your first instinct is to do exactly what you want.
But when someone calmly says, “Perfect. I’m going away too,” you suddenly start wondering, perhaps for the first time, whether anyone will be waiting for you when you come back.
Dear readers, what do you think of Lisa’s decision?
Some will say she did exactly the right thing. Her husband brought it on himself, and he deserved to experience how it feels.
Others will say she went too far. Marriage isn’t a competition. She should have stayed home, talked things through, and never flown halfway across the world with her boss.
But what would you have done?
Would you have gone to Dubai?
And would you forgive a husband who spent your shared savings paying for his ex-wife’s vacation?
Share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s discuss