“Sveta… I’m so sorry. But why are you calling me now?”
“Maria Andreevna, there’s a phone call for you,” the nurse said, peeking carefully through the office doorway. “Some woman. She says it’s urgent—a family matter.”
Maria reluctantly tore her eyes away from the patient’s medical chart. She had already been sitting with that folder for two hours. Outside the window, darkness had fallen long ago, and an oppressive silence hung over the ward. She picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Maria? It’s… Svetlana, the wife of your husband’s brother,” the voice on the other end trembled, as though the woman were clinging to the last of her strength. “I’m sorry for calling so late… there’s just no one else I can turn to…”
Maria’s heart stopped for a moment.
Svetlana. Igor’s wife. Igor was Viktor’s younger brother. Maria hadn’t spoken to Svetlana in more than three years—not since Maria divorced Viktor. Back then, her husband’s entire family had closed ranks against her, insisting that it was her own fault, that she had failed to save the marriage.
“What happened?” Maria asked cautiously.
“Igor… He’s in intensive care. A heart attack. The doctors…” Svetlana broke down sobbing. “They say he might not survive.”
Maria squeezed her eyes shut.
Igor. Kind, gentle Igor. The only member of Viktor’s family who hadn’t turned his back on her after the divorce. He had even called her secretly from time to time, asking how she was doing.
“Sveta… I’m so sorry. But why are you calling me now?”
“He… he keeps asking for you. Over and over: ‘Call Masha. Call Masha…’ I honestly don’t know why! But… Masha, please come. I’m begging you. Maybe this is his last request…”
Everything inside Maria tightened.
She glanced at the clock. It was almost eleven at night. Their town was at least a two-hour drive away.
“I’m coming,” she suddenly heard herself say in a voice that barely sounded like her own. “Which hospital?”
The drive felt like an ordeal.
An almost ringing silence filled the car, while a swarm of sharp, anxious thoughts spun through Maria’s mind. Why was Igor asking specifically for her? What could possibly have happened that would make a dying man call for his former sister-in-law instead of his own relatives?
She remembered the last time they had met. It had been accidental, in a supermarket. Igor had looked tired and pale. He had said something about work and how his nerves couldn’t take much more.
Maria remembered that she hadn’t really listened. She had simply offered a few polite, automatic responses.
“I should have paid attention,” she scolded herself now. “Forty-two years old, stress, work… all the warning signs were right there…”
The hospital was just as hospitals always were: constant movement and the smell of antiseptic.
Svetlana met her in the corridor. Her eyes were swollen and red, her face gray with exhaustion.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, grabbing Maria’s hands. “He’s conscious, but he’s weak. The doctor said only a few minutes. No more.”
The intensive care unit smelled of medicine and fear.
Igor lay in bed, surrounded by wires and medical equipment. His face was gray, his lips slightly bluish, but his eyes were alive and searching.
“Masha…” he whispered, barely audibly. “You came after all…”
“Of course, Igor. I’m here,” Maria replied softly, sitting down beside him.
She took his cold hand in hers.
“I… need to tell you something…” he managed with difficulty. “About Viktor…”
Maria tensed.
Viktor.
Her ex-husband.
Something inside her hardened, preparing for the unknown.
“Back then… when you were getting divorced…” Igor struggled to speak, pausing as he fought for breath. “He came to me… drunk… crying…”
“Igor, maybe we shouldn’t talk about this now…”
“We have to, Masha!” His voice became slightly stronger. “He told me… that it was his fault. That you wanted children, and he… he was afraid…”
Maria stopped breathing.
Children.
Their old wound.
Five years of marriage, and Viktor had always said, “Later.”
Work. The apartment. Money.
It wasn’t the right time.
Not today.
“He was afraid… of becoming like our father,” Igor said, weakly squeezing her fingers. “Our father drank. He beat us. Vitya thought he would become the same kind of man…”
The words fell on Maria like stones.
She remembered her father-in-law: a gloomy, withdrawn man who rarely spoke to anyone. He had died when Igor was still a teenager.
But Maria had never imagined that he drank and beat his children.
Viktor had never said a single word about it.
“He loves you, Masha. He really does. He just couldn’t overcome his fear back then. He was terrified he’d ruin your life… and your child’s life…” Igor could barely breathe now. “Forgive him…”
“Why… why didn’t he tell me anything?” Maria asked through tears, no longer trying to hold them back.
“Because… he was ashamed. Men don’t know how to talk about their fears… And then it was too late. You left…”
“Igor, why are you telling me this… now?”
“Because…” He looked directly into her eyes again. “Vitya is still alone. He works. He keeps quiet. Sometimes he drinks… not like our father, no. Just… because he’s alone…”
Maria remained silent, not because she didn’t want to answer but because she had no idea what to say.
For three years, she had told herself that Viktor was selfish. That he had always thought only about himself.
And now, suddenly, everything looked completely different.
“I’m… going to die soon, Masha,” Igor whispered. His voice grew weaker with every word. “And it hurts me so much… knowing you’re both unhappy… because of something so stupid…”
“What do you want from me?” Maria asked.
She barely recognized her own voice. It sounded empty and exhausted.
“Talk to him… Not so you can get back together. Just… finally understand each other. Forgive each other, maybe…”
Igor closed his eyes.
His hand in Maria’s palms felt icy and unfamiliar.
She remained sitting there, unable even to stand.
The machines beeped steadily. The doctor on duty entered the room and gave her a concerned, sympathetic look.
“How is he?” Maria asked, looking at the monitors.
“Stable. It appears the crisis has passed. But his condition is still very serious,” the doctor said, adjusting the IV and checking the readings. “Are you a relative?”
“I was… once,” Maria answered quietly.
Then she left, gently closing the door behind her.
In the hallway, Svetlana was half asleep on an uncomfortable plastic chair.
“How is he?”
“The doctor says he’s stable,” Maria said, carefully sitting down beside her, still feeling that same heavy pressure inside. “Svetlana, can I ask you something? Viktor… does he really drink?”
Svetlana sighed.
“No, not really. He doesn’t drink… But you know, he’s become so sad. It’s nothing but work, work, work. He goes home only to eat and sleep. He barely talks to anyone. He’s seen us maybe twice this whole year.”
“And does he have a woman in his life?” Maria asked as though she were speaking not about her former husband but about some distant acquaintance.
“No. Nobody. Igor said he tried going on dates, but nothing worked out. He still… thinks about you.”
Maria said nothing.
Somewhere deep inside her, it felt as though a shell of ice had cracked.
Three long years of resentment.
Three years of certainty that she had been right and Viktor had been wrong.
“I should go,” she said, standing and exhaling slowly. “Sveta… when Igor wakes up, tell him that I understood everything.”
Back home, Maria entered her own apartment, which suddenly seemed far too quiet.
She poured herself some tea and sat for a long time, holding the cup against herself like a talisman.
Strangely, she didn’t remember the arguments with Viktor.
Instead, she remembered all the good things.
How he used to meet her after her shifts.
How he made breakfast on Saturdays.
How they had dreamed about buying a house outside the city.
And then how all of it had gradually fallen apart—through conversations about children, silence, irritation, and the growing coldness between them.
“If only I had known about his fears back then…” Maria thought. “If we had just talked honestly. But instead, we shouted. We blamed each other…”
The next morning, she dialed a familiar number.
The phone rang for a long time.
Then she heard a voice that was still so painfully familiar, slightly hoarse.
“Hello?”
“Vitya? It’s Masha.”
A long, strained silence followed.
“Masha? What… happened?”
“Igor is in the hospital. He had a heart attack. But… he’s going to make it,” Maria hurried to reassure him, hearing Viktor exhale heavily into the phone. “Vitya, we need to talk.”
They met in a café.
For some reason, both of them had chosen “neutral territory,” as though they were meeting for the first time.
Viktor looked… older, perhaps.
There was gray at his temples and tired shadows beneath his eyes.
“How are you?” Maria asked cautiously, not really knowing where to begin.
“I’m fine,” he said with a shrug, briefly lowering his eyes. “Working. What about you?”
“I’m working too… Vitya… Igor told me… about your father. About your fears…”
Viktor’s face froze. His expression changed instantly.
“Don’t…” he said tiredly, almost hopelessly.
“We have to,” Maria interrupted gently but firmly. “Why did you keep quiet? We were husband and wife…”
“What difference would it have made?” His voice was low and slightly cracked. “You wanted children. And I… couldn’t give you that. What difference does it make whether it was because I was selfish or because I was afraid?”
“It makes a huge difference, Vitya,” Maria replied, speaking louder than usual for the first time in years. “You can work through fear. You can see a therapist. We could have tried together… Selfishness is much harder to change.”
Viktor remained silent.
He slowly turned his coffee cup between his hands as if searching for answers at the bottom.
“I thought… it would go away on its own. That eventually everything would settle down and I’d deal with it. But time passed. You pressured me more and more, and I pulled away more and more… And it ended with me losing you.”
“We lost each other,” Maria admitted quietly, lowering her eyes. “I was at fault too. I spent more time trying to change you than trying to understand you…”
“I’m sorry, Masha. For everything.”
“And I’m sorry too.”
They sat in the café, and between them lay not only a table and two cups of cold coffee, but an entire abyss made of years, pain, mistakes, and words that had never been spoken.
And suddenly the resentment was gone.
The anger was gone too.
It was as though a fresh breeze had passed through the air.
The time had come for silence.
“What happens now?” Viktor finally asked, looking somewhat lost, as if he had forgotten how to think about the future.
“I don’t know,” Maria answered honestly, without trying to pretend she was stronger or wiser than she really was. “Probably nothing. Too much time has passed… But now I understand that neither of us was really to blame. We just… didn’t know how to talk to each other.”
“And what if… we tried to learn?” Viktor asked uncertainly, with the hopefulness of a grown child.
Maria looked directly into his eyes.
The same eyes she had once fallen in love with instantly and completely.
So much had changed, yet those eyes were still kind.
Only tired.
“I don’t know, Vitya… Maybe. But not to bring back the past. Just… so it doesn’t hurt so much anymore.”
He nodded slowly, but in a way that showed he truly understood.
“I hear you, Masha.”
A week passed.
Igor was discharged from the hospital.
He sat at home in an armchair, still pale and somewhat uncertain of his own strength, but alive. Truly alive.
Maria came to visit him and brought an entire bag of necessary medications—the very ones that were nearly impossible to find in their town.
“Thank you,” Igor said quietly with a tired smile. “And not only for the medicine…”
“What else for?”
“For talking to Vitya. Svetka told me you met…”
“We just talked. Don’t start imagining things…”
“I’m not imagining anything,” Igor said with a cheerful smirk. “I can simply see that both of you feel better. Am I right?”
He was right.
Maria no longer woke up at night filled with resentment and anger toward Viktor.
And according to Svetlana, Viktor had finally made an appointment with a psychologist.
He said he wanted to understand his fears.
For the first time in so many years, honestly and openly.
“Better late than never,” Maria thought.
And she stopped waiting.
She didn’t call him.
She didn’t build illusions.
And she no longer held a grudge.
Most importantly, the heavy emptiness inside her had been replaced by a warm sense of clarity.
The resentment was gone.
And perhaps that was the most important thing.
Sometimes Maria remembered Igor’s words:
“Men don’t know how to talk about their fears.”
And then she would suddenly catch herself wondering: perhaps women don’t always know how to wait and listen either?
Perhaps they don’t always know how to stay close when someone finally finds the courage to open up?
Maybe not.
That is something people have to learn too.
It is good that there are people like Igor in this world—people who, even when standing at the edge of death, think not about themselves, but about how to help others find their way back to one another.
Even if only so they can forgive.