He Announced in Front of His Relatives That He Had Found a “Normal Woman.” I Took the Keys to My Own Apartment Out of My Bag
“So, Nelly, is the borscht at least normal today?” Vadim snapped his fingers and leaned back in his chair. His friends were sitting at the table — Genka with his wife, and Seryoga. Saturday. Guests. As usual, without warning.
For nine years, I had heard different versions of that phrase.
“So, Nelly, did you at least not burn it today?”
“So, Nelly, the dress is old, but you still look okay.”
“So, Nelly, when are you finally going to learn how to cook?”
Always in front of people. Always with that little smile, as if he were joking. And I would stand there with a ladle and smile back. Because making a scene in front of guests meant, “You’re being hysterical again.”
Genka chuckled. His wife Sveta lowered her eyes into her bowl. Seryoga reached for the bread and pretended not to hear.
“The borscht is normal,” I said. “But your salary last month was about a C-minus.”
Vadim froze with the spoon in his hand. Genka stopped chewing. The silence was so thick I could hear the refrigerator humming.
“What’s wrong with you?” Vadim asked.
“Nothing. I’m joking. You like jokes, don’t you?”
He did not answer. He finished eating in silence. The guests left early. At the door, Sveta squeezed my hand quickly, as if apologizing. For what? For staying silent? Or for having heard it all?
That evening, Vadim was lying on the couch, scrolling through his phone. I was washing the dishes. Four plates, three mugs, a frying pan. As always, he had left his plate on the table. In nine years, he had never once carried his plate to the sink. Not once. I counted during the first two years, then stopped.
“You embarrassed me in front of people today,” he said without looking up from the screen.
“You embarrass me every Saturday. Twice a month. At least.”
“I joke. You get angry.”
I placed a plate on the drying rack. My wet fingers slipped along the edge. I wanted to say a lot. But I stayed silent. Not because I was afraid, but because I knew words would change nothing. He did not hear me. He had not heard me for nine years.
His phone flashed with a message. He turned the screen face down. Quickly, with a practiced movement.
I noticed.
The bonus was paid in March. Thirty-two thousand. I worked as an accountant at a construction company, and I had earned that bonus with three weeks of overtime. I sat over reports in the evenings while Vadim watched football or went “to the garage with the guys.”
Thirty-two thousand. I placed the envelope on the table. I had not even managed to take off my coat.
Vadim picked up the envelope and flipped through the bills.
“Great. That’s exactly what I needed for the compressor.”
“What compressor?”
“For the garage. I told you.”
He had not told me. I would have remembered. But arguing was pointless — he always claimed he “had told me.” And I always “forgot.”
Thirty-two thousand. Three weeks. Fourteen evenings until nine. A compressor.
The next day, I went to the bank. Not the one where we had our joint account. Another one, two blocks away. I opened a card in my own name. I arranged for text messages to come only through the mobile app, with no notifications appearing on the screen.
The first transfer was five thousand. From my salary. Vadim did not notice. He never checked my expenses in detail. It was enough for him to know that “there was money on the card.” How much exactly did not interest him.
Five thousand. Then seven. Then ten. I started saving on groceries — buying chicken instead of beef, cooking with seasonal vegetables. Vadim did not notice. He generally did not notice what he ate unless he had something to complain about.
I called Rita a month later.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“Serious.”
“Nelly, leave now. Why save? Why wait? Just pack your things.”
“And go where? To your one-room apartment? With Varya and the cat?”
Rita fell silent. She understood. I was forty-six years old. I had no home of my own. My parents’ apartment had been sold long ago, and my share had gone toward my mother’s treatment. Leaving meant ending up in a rented room with a salary of forty-eight thousand. Vadim knew that. And I knew that.
“Save,” Rita said. “Just be careful.”
A month later, there were twenty-seven thousand in the account. Every evening, I opened the app in the bathroom while the water was running. I looked at the numbers. And I fell asleep a little calmer.
Vadim started coming home later and later. Wednesday was a “meeting.” Friday was the “garage.” Sometimes Saturday was “fishing.” Only the fishing rods had been gathering dust in the trunk for three months.
He left his phone on the kitchen table. He went to take a shower.
I was not planning to check it. Truly. I was pouring tea when the screen lit up. A message from “Zhanna work”: “I miss you. When already?”
My hands trembled. Tea splashed onto the countertop. Hot tea burned my wrist. But I did not pull my hand away. I stood there and stared at the screen until it went dark. Then I picked up the phone. The code was 1987. His birth year. He had not even changed the password in nine years.
The conversation was long. I scrolled quickly, my fingers shaking. Not from fear. From something else — something heavy and dull, like a stone in my stomach.
Zhanna. A colleague from a neighboring department. Forty-four years old. Divorced. An apartment in a new building.
“After New Year, I’ll talk to her and leave.”
“She won’t go anywhere, she knows that herself.”
“She has neither a stake nor a yard to her name. She’ll sit quietly.”
I put the phone back in its place. Screen up. Just as it had been.
Vadim came out of the shower, picked up the phone, and shoved it into his pocket. He looked at me.
“Is the tea hot?”
“Normal.”
He sat down and took the mug. I watched him drink. Calmly. Confidently. A man who had already decided everything. A man who knew his wife “wouldn’t go anywhere.”
There were three hundred eighty thousand in the account.
That night, I lay there staring at the ceiling. Vadim snored beside me. I was not thinking about Zhanna. Not about the messages. I was thinking about the numbers. Three hundred eighty thousand was not enough. For a down payment on a one-room apartment in our city, I needed at least eight hundred thousand. Better yet, a million.
That meant I needed a side job.
The next week, I made an arrangement with Larisa from a neighboring company. She was looking for a part-time accountant — remote, in the evenings. Fifteen thousand a month. I told Vadim I was staying late at work. He did not ask why. He did not care.
Fifteen thousand extra. Plus ten from my main salary. Plus savings. Four months later — seven hundred twelve thousand.
I submitted a mortgage application online. I filled out the form at night while Vadim slept. I got proof of income from both jobs. I applied under a program for families without their own housing.
The approval came on Thursday. I sat in the kitchen, drinking cold tea, and read the text message three times.
“Your application has been approved. Amount: 3,200,000 rubles. Down payment: from 15%. Term: up to 25 years.”
Fifteen percent of three million two hundred thousand was four hundred eighty thousand. I had seven hundred twelve. With money to spare.
The next week, I went to look at an apartment. A one-room apartment on the eighth floor. Thirty-six square meters. A large east-facing window — there would be sun in the morning. A small kitchen, but it would be enough for me. I was alone.
The realtor walked me through the rooms. I touched the walls. Smooth, fresh plaster. It smelled of paint and something new.
“Will you take it?” she asked.
“I’ll take it.”
That evening, Vadim came home at ten. He smelled of another woman’s perfume — sweet and heavy. I did not say a word. I washed the dishes. I went to bed.
There were eight hundred ninety-three thousand in the account. Two months remained until the move — I had to wait for the deal with the developer. I counted the days.
They arrived on Saturday. Vadim’s mother, his brother Oleg, and Oleg’s wife. A “family lunch.” Vadim warned me two hours in advance: “Mother’s coming. Set the table properly.”
I set the table. Salad, baked chicken, potatoes. Two hours of cooking. A table for six. As always.
My mother-in-law, Zinaida Pavlovna, sat in her usual place — by the window, like a commander. Oleg picked at his salad with a fork. His wife Lena smiled quietly.
The first hour passed normally. Vadim joked, poured wine, and was cheerful. Too cheerful. I knew that tone — the one he used when he was preparing to announce something.
After the second glass, he stood up.
“Well, family. There’s news.”
Zinaida Pavlovna raised her head. Oleg stopped chewing.
“I’m leaving Nelly.”
Silence. Lena dropped her fork.
“I found a normal woman. Zhanna. We work together. It’s serious. It was long overdue — you can all see how things are here.”
He waved his hand as if indicating the whole apartment. Our apartment. His apartment. The place where I had washed floors, cooked borscht, endured his jokes, and washed his socks for nine years.
Zinaida Pavlovna looked at me. Not with sympathy. With assessment. As if checking whether I would cry or not.
Oleg cleared his throat.
“Well, Vad, maybe not at the table?”
“When, then? Everything’s fine. Nelly knew it was coming. Where’s she going to go? She’ll sit, think, and then we’ll separate peacefully.”
“Where’s she going to go?”
I had read that phrase in his messages with Zhanna. And now he said it out loud. In front of everyone.
I sat across from him. My back straight. My hands on my knees. I could feel my nails digging into my palms. It hurt. But that was good — because the pain kept me from crying.
My bag was by the entrance. Inside it was a set of keys. Two keys on a ring with a tag. Apartment number eighty-three. My apartment. The documents had been signed a week earlier.
I stood up. Went into the hallway. Took my bag. Came back. Vadim’s whole family was looking at me as if they were in a theater.
I placed the keys on the table. Next to the salad bowl.
“These are the keys to my apartment,” I said. “A one-room apartment on Molodezhnaya Street. Registered in my name. Mortgage approved, down payment made. I saved for a year and a half.”
Vadim looked at the keys. Then at me.
“What?”
“I left you earlier. A year and a half earlier. You simply didn’t notice.”
Zinaida Pavlovna opened her mouth and closed it again. Oleg pushed his plate away. Lena stared at me with round eyes.
“You’re lying,” Vadim said.
“One million one hundred forty thousand. In a separate account. From bonuses, from a side job, from saving on groceries. The very groceries you ate without noticing it was chicken instead of beef. A year and a half.”
“That’s our money!” Zinaida Pavlovna jabbed her finger at the table. “Family money!”
“My salary. My bonus. My side job. In a year and a half, Vadim spent more on the garage and his ‘fishing trips’ than I saved.”
Vadim stood there. His face was red, sweat shining on his forehead. He snapped his fingers — a habit he had when he was nervous.
“You lied to me for a year and a half?”
I looked him in the eyes.
“And how long did you lie to me? Eight months of messages with Zhanna? ‘She won’t go anywhere, she knows that herself.’ Remember? October fourteenth, eleven thirty at night. I remember.”
He turned pale.
I picked up the keys from the table. Put them in my bag. Zipped it closed. Calmly, as if I were getting ready for work.
“I’ll pick up my things tomorrow. Rita and I will come; she has a car. Thank you for lunch. The chicken, by the way, turned out normal.”
I went into the hallway. Put on my coat. My hands were not shaking — surprising, because inside me everything was humming like wires under voltage.
Behind me, there were voices. Zinaida Pavlovna was scolding Vadim about something. Oleg quietly asked, “You really didn’t know?” Lena was rustling dishes.
I closed the door behind me.
The stairwell was quiet. It smelled like an apartment building — dampness and old paint. I stood there and breathed. Just breathed. For a year and a half, I had imagined this moment — me walking out. And now it had arrived.
My legs gave way. I sat down on the step. Cold concrete through my jeans. My bag on my knees. Inside it were the keys to my apartment. Mine.
I took out my phone and called Rita.
“I’m out.”
“I’m coming,” she said, and hung up.
I sat on the step and waited. Downstairs, the entrance door slammed — one of the neighbors. Above me, silence. No one ran after me. No one called me back.
And that was right.
Rita arrived twenty minutes later. Silently, she opened the car door. I got in and fastened my seat belt. She looked at me, and I saw that her eyes were red.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
We drove through the evening city. The streetlights were coming on. I looked out the window and thought that tomorrow I would wake up in an empty apartment. No curtains, no furniture, with a mattress on the floor. But it would be my apartment. With keys no one could take away.
Rita was silent all the way home. Only when I got out and took out the keys did she say:
“Call me if anything happens. Even at three in the morning.”
“I will.”
I went up to the eighth floor. Opened the door. An empty room. A bare lightbulb without a shade. The smell of plaster.
I put my bag on the floor. Took out my phone. Eighteen missed calls from Vadim. Three voice messages. Two messages from Zinaida Pavlovna: “Shameless” and “Return the money.”
I turned off the phone.
I sat on the windowsill. Outside were lights. The city was living its own life. And I sat in my own apartment and felt something heavy, something nine years old, slowly sliding off my shoulders.
Not happiness. Not joy.
Just air.
As if someone had opened a window in a room that had not been aired out in a very long time.
Two months have passed. I live on Molodezhnaya Street. I hung curtains and bought a table. Rita’s cat, Barsik, moved in with me; she said, “He has more space with you.”
Vadim calls. Every week. Zhanna did not take him in — it turned out she liked him married and well-off, not divorced and without prospects. He sits alone in our old apartment. He asks to “talk normally.” I do not pick up.
Zinaida Pavlovna tells everyone that I “robbed her son and ran away.” Oleg says hello to me. Lena wrote once: “You’re strong. I wouldn’t have been able to.”
The relatives are divided. My mother’s friend Valentina Sergeyevna said that “decent women don’t do things like that — secretly, like thieves.” Rita replied that decent husbands don’t go around getting themselves Zhannas.
I pay the mortgage. Twenty-three thousand a month. With the side job, it is manageable. Not wealthy. But it is mine.
So tell me: was I right to save money secretly for a year and a half? Or should I have left immediately — without secrets, without a backup plan, without all of this?
