“Uncle, come home early,” said the little beggar girl. He listened and caught his wife in… an interesting situation.
Igor sat in his office, swallowed by a heavy, almost tangible silence. Even the clock on the wall seemed afraid to tickits hands frozen, as if unwilling to disrupt the sorrow hanging in the air. His gaze fixed on the corner of the expensive dark-wood desk, but he saw nothing. His vision turned inward, where his soul ached, gnawed by guiltthoughts of home, of the bedroom where his wife Kristina, he believed, was slowly fading away.
A careful knock. Not loud, not insistentlike someone afraid to disturb his solitude. Olga, his deputy and, as he felt, the only reason he hadnt lost his mind yet, appeared in the doorway. She entered, and the office seemed to brighten. But her usual warm smile was absent. She walked to his desk and silently placed a folded sheet of paper before hima resignation letter.
“Olya, what is this?” His voice cracked into a hoarse whisper. He felt something inside him shatter.
“Its for the best, Igor. For everyone,” she replied quietly, avoiding his eyes. “I already found a job. In another city.”
Pain, dull and sharp at once, shot through him. He stood, circled the desk, and gripped her handscold as winter wind slipping through old window cracks.
“Dont go. Please,” he begged like a prayer.
“I cant stay. She needs you,” her voice trembled with unshed tears. “You belong with her.”
“Its my fault!” he nearly shouted, voice breaking. “Shes sick because of me! My sin, my affair with youits killing her!”
“Stop,” Olga finally met his eyes, and he saw the same pain mirrored in them. “Youre not to blame. Let yourself go.”
But he couldnt. His mind replayed the past, memories hurled at him like weapons. His marriage to Kristina had been arranged by parents obsessed with tradition and status. He remembered her coldness, her disgust at his attempts to connect, her perpetual dissatisfaction. She refused children, calling them “burdens” and “figure-ruiners.” Her world was high society, expensive gowns, and outshining others diamondswhile he was just her wallet and status symbol.
Then Olga entered his life. For the first time, he knew warmth, care, love. She asked for nothingjust stood by him, listened, held him. One memory tormented him most: deciding to be honest, hed asked Kristina for a divorce. What followed wasnt just a tantrumit was theater. She screamed, smashed dishes, then clutched her chest and collapsed. From that day, she was “bedridden” with a mysterious, undiagnosable illness.
Returning home became torture. A gloomy, suffocating atmosphere met him at the door. Kristina lay propped on pillows, greeting him weakly:
“Youre late again… You dont care. I might not live till morning.”
Swallowing the lump in his throat, hed sit by her bed, guilt devouring him. Hed do anything to keep her alive, to atone. So when she claimed to have found a “medical luminary” who could cure her, he agreed. The smug, well-groomed professor visited twice daily, administering mysterious injections and charging exorbitant feesall paid without question.
That evening, he parked outside their wrought-iron gates and shut off the engine. He couldnt bring himself to step out. Just five more minutesfive minutes of silence before returning to that hell of sighs, accusations, and medicine smells.
A knock on the window. A thin girl, maybe ten, in a worn jacket stood there with a bucket of murky water and a rag. Hed seen her before, offering to wash headlights for change.
“Mister, need your lights cleaned?”
He nodded, handed her a bill far exceeding the services worth. She wiped the headlights, snatched the money, and turned to leavethen spun back:
“You come home too late. Try arriving earlier.”
With that, she vanished into the dark. Igor sat baffled. What a strange thing to say…
Morning unfolded as usual. Kristina greeted him with a groan:
“Dont touch me!” She jerked away as he adjusted her pillow. “The nurse will handle it. Go to worksince it matters more than your dying wife.”
Relieved, he slipped out. Work offered no solace. At lunch, glancing from his office window, he saw his worst fear materialize: Olga walking to her car, carrying a box of belongings. She drove awayforever.
Despair and self-loathing crashed over him. Hed lost her, sacrificed her to guilt over a woman hed never loved. Sinking into his chair, he buried his face in his hands. It was over.
Thena flash. The girls words: “Try arriving earlier.”
Why? What did it mean? The thought was irrational, but it was his only lifeline. Acting on impulse, he grabbed his coat, stormed past his stunned secretary (“Im gone”), and raced home in broad daylight.
Nearing the house, he spotted the professors black Mercedes at the gatebut his visits were strictly morning and evening. Alarm spiked. Heart pounding, he burst insideand froze.
From Kristinas bedroom: music and… loud, robust laughter.
Stiff-legged, he approached. The sounds grew louder. He shoved the door openand stood paralyzed.
On their marital bed sat the utterly naked “doctor.” Before him, in a sheer negligee, his “dying” wife Kristina swayed playfully, champagne flute in hand, alive with energy.
They noticed him belatedly. The doctors smile vanished. Kristina froze, eyes wide with horror.
“Igor!” she shrieked. “This isnt what It was his idea! A therapy!”
“WHAT?!” The doctor lunged up, clutching a sheet. “You lying witch! It was your schemeyou took half the ‘treatment’ money!”
Igor shooknot from weakness, but icy, burning rage. Silently, he turned, retrieved his hunting rifle from the study, and returned.
A deafening shot. The bullet struck the floor inches from the doctors foot.
“Five seconds,” Igors voice was glacial. “To vanish from my house and life. Five… four…”
They scrambled out half-dressed, tires screeching moments later.
Alone, surrounded by betrayals stench, shock gave way to clarity: Olga. He had to find Olga.
He sped to her apartment, but her elderly neighbor answered:
“Shes gone. Just left for the train stationdeparting in an hour.”
A reckless chase ensuedrunning lights, dodging traffic, police sirens wailing behind him. Cutting through alleys, he demolished a flimsy barrier and skidded onto the platform.
Chaoscrowds, announcements, whistles. Finding her seemed impossible. Thena promoter with a microphone. He shoved cash at her, seized the mic, and his amplified plea echoed:
“OLGA! If you hear me, dont leave! Im begging you! Its not what you thinkI love you! I cant live without you!”
Turning wildly, he scanned every faceuntil a quiet voice spoke beside him:
“And what about sick Kristina?”
Olga stood there, tear-streaked, clutching a ticket. He dropped the mic, fell to his knees on the filthy pavement.
“There was never any illness!” he gasped. “A lie to trap me. I know everything now. Forgive mefor being so blind!”
Police gripped his shouldersbut the crowd erupted:
“Let him go!”
“Cant you see? Hes fighting for love!”
Olga knelt, embracing him as they wept. The officers retreated.
Two hours later, they arrived at his emptied house. He silently bagged Kristinas belongings, then paused:
“Olya… why the rush? You hadnt even secured a new job. Why leave so suddenly?”
She looked up, tears flowing.
“I was scared… Scared to tell you and trap you completely.”
“Worse than this?”
A shaky breath. Barely a whisper:
“To tell you Im pregnant.”
Time stopped. Thenjoy detonated inside him. Laughing, he lifted her, spinning as he chanted:
“I love you! Hear me? I love you! And our baby! Ill never let you go!”
A year later, they stood on their terrace, watching their three-month-old daughter sleep in the garden. The ugliness with Kristinalawsuits, slanderwas behind them. Hed paid only what the law required and erased her from his life.
The little girl no longer stood by the road. That same night after the station, hed found herher mother ill, father unemployed. Now her father worked for him, her mother received top-tier care, and they sometimes visited for tea and cake.
Gazing at his daughter, holding Olga close, Igor realized: hed walked through hell to find his true paradise.
