Olga Viktorovna, where are you going? The meeting starts in fifteen minutes,” the head teacher called after her.
“Irina Pavlovna, I’m not feeling well,” Olga pressed her palm to her forehead. “A migraine is starting.”
“Pick up all the materials from Marina Sergeyevna later. And don’t forget to fill out the attendance register.”
The stairwell smelled of damp plaster. The neighbors upstairs were renovating again — clearly they had money to burn. Her own repairs in her grandmother’s old Khrushchev-era apartment kept being postponed: sometimes there wasn’t enough money, sometimes not enough time, and sometimes not enough resolve.
On the landing outside her apartment, she hesitated and listened. Silence. Strange — Andrey was supposed to be home. For the past four months, he had been “working from home,” which was what he called his unsuccessful job search.
There was not a sound in the hallway, only water dripping from the kitchen faucet — drip, drip, drip. She really needed to buy a new washer. She had reminded Andrey twice already, but he kept forgetting.
“I’m home,” Olga said quietly.
No one answered. Then she heard her husband’s voice from the study:
“Yes, of course, I’ll be there by five… All the documents are ready… No, she doesn’t know, of course. It’s a surprise…”
Olga knocked. A pause hung behind the door, followed by a hurried:
“I’ll call you back.”
Andrey stood in the doorway — still handsome, fit, smelling of her favorite cologne. Once, her heart had stopped whenever she looked at him. Sometimes it still did — only now in a different way.
“You’re early today,” irritation flashed across his face, but he immediately smiled. “Migraine?”
Her eyes fell on the desk. Andrey quickly swept some papers into a pile and shoved them into a drawer.
“Tax return,” he explained. “Boring stuff.”
She did not ask why “boring stuff” required such haste and secrecy.
In the kitchen, the faucet was still dripping. Drip, drip, drip.
Three years ago, when they had just gotten married, Andrey had talked about “prospects,” “opportunities,” and made grand plans. She had believed him. Having grown up in a family where her father left early and her mother raised her alone, Olga had always dreamed of a strong family, of a reliable husband with serious ambitions.
After losing his job at a law firm a year earlier, Andrey had been unable to find anything suitable.
“I’m not going to work for pennies,” he would declare proudly.
And all the while, she was supporting both of them on her teacher’s salary.
That evening, her husband suddenly showed concern — he cooked dinner, lit candles, and opened a bottle of dry red wine.
“You know, I have good news,” he said. “Looks like I might have a job. A serious one. With prospects.”
“Really? Where?”
“An insurance company. Legal department. But I don’t want to say too much yet — in case it doesn’t work out.”
She nodded. In three years, she had grown used to his “promising opportunities,” which for some reason never turned into actual offers.
In the teachers’ lounge, Marina Sergeyevna squeezed through with a cup of coffee and dropped down beside her.
“So, what about your handsome man? Still sitting at home?”
Olga winced. Everyone at school knew about her situation.
“Andrey is going to interviews,” she replied dryly.
“By the way, is it true that you and your husband are drawing up some kind of prenuptial agreement? My Petya saw yours at the multifunctional center with papers for the apartment.”
Olga felt everything inside her turn cold.
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“Your Andrey was consulting a lawyer about preparing some documents. Something serious, right?”
Her grandmother’s apartment. The only thing that remained in her personal ownership. Soon after the wedding, Andrey had convinced her to rent out the apartment and lease a place closer to the center.
“Grandma’s apartment will always be our safety cushion.”
“We’re not drawing up anything,” Olga answered firmly.
Anxiety would not let go of her. Why would Andrey be preparing some papers for the apartment without telling her?
She came home late. She had deliberately stayed longer at school. On the neighboring desk lay a forgotten child’s glove with penguins on it. That small thing brought a wave of longing over her.
Children. At first, Andrey had said he wanted a family, then he started insisting they should “get on their feet first.” And she had waited. At thirty-nine, there was not much time left.
In the morning, Andrey left early — another interview. Olga stayed alone. In the kitchen, the faucet dripped: drip, drip, drip.
She went into the study. The desk drawer was locked. In the top drawer of the nightstand, she found a spare key.
The documents were lying on top. A prenuptial agreement on the letterhead of a legal firm. Her eyes ran over the lines.
“…the apartment belonging to the wife at the time of marriage, located at the address… shall be considered jointly acquired property of the spouses and, in the event of division of property…”
At the bottom of the document were signatures — his and… hers? She stared at the scribble. Similar, but not quite. Someone had carefully copied her handwriting.
Under the agreement lay a sheet with several versions of her signature. He had been practicing.
In the back of the drawer, she found an envelope — a bank statement, a credit line for a large amount. The date was one month earlier.
Andrey’s phone was lying on the desk — he had forgotten it. She picked it up. The screen showed their wedding photo. Usually the phone was protected by a password, but now, for some reason, it unlocked immediately.
With trembling fingers, Olga opened the messenger and saw a conversation with a contact named “Kristina ♥.”
“Everything is going according to plan, bunny. Soon we’ll finalize the documents, and I’ll be able to take out a proper loan secured by that dump. And in a year or two, we’ll get rid of it completely. Be patient a little longer.”
“Sweetheart, maybe we shouldn’t drag it out? She doesn’t notice anything anyway. We can speed things up.”
“Don’t panic, baby. Everything has to be legally clean. I have everything under control.”
Olga opened the gallery. Among many photos, she found several with a blonde woman — young, about twenty-five, with bright red lips. In one photo, she and Andrey were embracing against the backdrop of the sea. The date was six months earlier, when he had supposedly gone to “a promising interview in another city.”
Olga set the table for dinner as usual. Not a word, not a look betrayed what she had discovered. Let it be a celebration.
Andrey returned in a good mood.
“Looks like this time everything will work out,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “Insurance company. Good conditions.”
“I’m glad,” she answered, pouring the wine.
The person sitting across from her seemed like a complete stranger. When had this distance between them begun?
“By the way,” Olga began, “you’re not planning to do anything with my grandmother’s apartment, are you?”
Andrey tensed.
“Why would you suddenly think that?”
“Marina said someone saw you at the multifunctional center with some papers.”
“Your colleagues gossip too much. I just stopped by to ask about taxes.”
Olga stood up and went to the refrigerator. From under a magnet, she took out a sheet of paper folded into quarters and placed it in front of him.
“Why did you include my premarital apartment in a prenuptial agreement?” she asked.
Andrey froze.
“What is this?”
“You know what it is. The agreement I supposedly signed. With a forged signature.”
For several seconds, he was silent. Then his face twisted.
“You were going through my things?”
“And you were forging my signature to take possession of my apartment.”
“That’s nonsense,” he shoved his chair back sharply. “You misunderstood everything. It’s just a draft. A rough version. I was thinking of surprising you.”
“A surprise? You practiced forging my signature, took out a loan, and listed my only property as jointly acquired? What a thoughtful surprise.”
“All of this can be explained,” Andrey began pacing the kitchen. “Yes, I was planning a prenuptial agreement, but for our future. I needed the loan to start a business. I would have paid everything back! I’m tired of living on your pennies! I want a normal life!”
“And Kristina?” Olga asked quietly. “Is she also part of your plan for ‘our future’?”
He stopped. His eyes widened.
“You read my messages?”
“Who is she, Andrey?”
“A client. Just a client.”
“One you went to the seaside with six months ago? When you supposedly went to an interview?”
For several seconds, Andrey was silent. Then he raised his eyes — angry, almost hateful.
“And what did you think? That I would rot away with you forever? A schoolteacher with a pathetic salary, no prospects, no connections? You’re thirty-nine! When are you going to give me children? At forty-five?”
“How long have you been together?” she asked, surprised by her own calm.
“A year and a half,” he looked her straight in the eye defiantly. “Ever since you refused to sell the apartment for my business.”
“So for more than half of our marriage, you were having an affair and at the same time planning to steal my property?”
“Not steal!” He slammed his fist on the table. “Use it for our common good! I would have paid everything back later!”
Olga looked at him and no longer recognized him.
“Leave,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“Pack your things and leave. Right now.”
“You’re kicking me out? Over some piece of paper?”
“Over lies,” Olga answered. “You have half an hour.”
Three months passed in a kind of haze. At first, Andrey called almost every day — sometimes threatening to sue her for slander, sometimes begging her to come back, sometimes promising everything would change. She listened silently and then ended the call.
Olga moved into her grandmother’s apartment. At last, she replaced the old windows with plastic ones, stripped off the ancient wallpaper, and put up new. She bought a sofa instead of the sagging old daybed. Small, but hers. Hers alone.
In the evening, sitting in the tiny kitchen, she warmed her hands around an old chipped mug of tea. Outside the window, snow was falling — large flakes slowly drifting down to the ground. The first snow of her new life.
Her phone vibrated softly. An unknown number, but she already knew who it was.
“I miss you. Let’s talk… Kristina was a mistake. I realized that only with you was I truly happy…”
From a mutual acquaintance, she learned that Kristina had left Andrey as soon as she realized there would be no money from the apartment sale. Now he had no roof over his head, no job, and no “baby.”
Olga looked at the chipped mug in her hands. How many years had she been drinking from it? Her first husband had smashed her favorite cup in a fit of jealousy, but she had glued it back together, kept it, and never thrown it away. She had grown used to enduring, to settling for little, to clinging to the shards of relationships.
She blocked yet another number of her ex-husband’s.
From the cupboard, she took out a new tea set — snow-white, for one person. She poured tea into a cup without a single flaw. Steam rose toward the ceiling, curling into strange spirals.
Through the new double-glazed windows, no street noise came in. All she could hear was the quiet rustle of falling snow. Somewhere on the windowsill of a neighboring building, a garland was glowing — someone was getting ready for the New Year.
Olga took a sip. The tea smelled of blackcurrant and something else, something almost impossible to name.
Perhaps freedom.