– Well, come on, tell us what happened there, why did you come?” the grandmother asked, looking intently into the face of her granddaughter. It seemed that she already knew everything and was just waiting for confirmation.
– We are breaking up with Victor, – Kate confirmed her worst guesses.
Grandma sighed heavily. Her soul has always been rooting for her beloved granddaughter, since her childhood, when her father died and she remained an “orphan”. Grandma felt: now that her son is gone, little Kate will not need her mother. And so it happened. The daughter-in-law quickly found herself a new suitor, and leaving Kate “literally for a couple of months”, she ran away to another city. But six months passed, then a year, then another, and the girl remained with her grandparents. They did not mind.
Kate grew up, studied, found a job in a good company. Everything was going very well. When her granddaughter invited Victor to dinner, he was approved as a candidate for marriage that evening. Victor seemed like a decent, polite man…
– He had another woman, – Kate explained her decision to divorce.
That day Victor had a corporate party at work. Kate waited for him all evening. The phone was not available. In the morning she heard the key in the door. The man was drunk. Kate helped him undress and put him to bed. Nothing alarmed her.
Only two weeks later Kate had some suspicions. In the evenings, her husband’s phone rang all the time. He frowned and hung up the calls. One day, by chance, Kate saw a message on the phone screen: “No matter how hard you try, you will never forget that evening…” What?! – thought Kate.
Not used to secrets and hints, Kate directly asked her husband what the matter was. And he immediately told her everything as it was. At the same corporate party, having drunk too much, he did not resist the advances of his ardent colleague. What happened, happened… Since then, she has been trying to get her husband, hoping for a continuation.
Kate in a nightmare could not imagine such a development of events. The old world collapsed, and she did not know what to do now.
– Grandma, although I told Victor that my decision to divorce is final, in my heart I can not accept it. And what about my daughter?
Grandma hugged her granddaughter, as she understood all the suffering of her granddaughter
– Your grandfather and I will soon celebrate our golden wedding. And if you ask any of our neighbors, everyone will say: we are an ideal family. But what do outsiders know? I married your grandfather at the age of 18. I had no choice – my parents asked me to marry him. I fell in love with him much later, when I gave birth to your father. I looked at him and saw a man. He was too much like him. I thought there was no one happier than me in the whole world. And then I found out that your grandfather was walking in the dark: he would contact one woman at the factory, then another. Can you imagine how I felt? Twenty-something, a child in my arms, parents far away… where could I go? So I endured. There was no one to cry to, I was afraid to write to my family. I just waited for everything to shake itself out. And it did! My husband just burned out to other women – he had enough, I think. He began to appreciate me, he began to raise my son. You can’t imagine how many times I mentally thanked myself for enduring everything. What if I had left? If I had left the child without a father, I would have doomed myself to a lonely life. That’s how it is, Kate! Sometimes you have to turn a blind eye to circumstances for the good of the family.
The girl sat stunned. Grandparents were an example for her in everything, she referred to them when she told her future husband about how she sees marriage. And then this …
I left with a heavy heart. She came for advice, but instead she became even more confused about what was happening.
The next morning Kate woke up with a decision. She would not file for divorce. She will try to save the marriage – just like her grandmother and probably millions of other women like her did. Victor, having learned about his wife’s decision, almost jumped to the ceiling.
Life went on as usual. Everything seems to be the same, but something in life has changed. Kate felt it clearly. There was no longer that lightness that she boasted to her friends: “I feel so good with Victor!”
Every little thing was now perceived much more painful than before. When her husband was late at work, a worm of doubt settled in Kate. Did he not answer the call? Clearly not for good…
It seemed to the girl that everyone around her knew about her shame. Everyone around her thought – “Here is the fool who forgave her husband for cheating!”
A few weeks later, Kate again appeared on the threshold of her grandmother’s apartment.
– I can’t, grandma! I can’t do it like you! – she complained with tears in her eyes. – I thought I could forget the past for the sake of a bright future. But I’m sorry, I can’t see the future, and my present is more like a nightmare…
Grandma sighed. Here it is – the modern generation…
Kate’s heart was relieved. Will her daughter be happy seeing her unhappy mother around? I don’t think so. That’s all, as simple as that.
