Marina remained behind the wheel for some time, clinging her fingers so tightly to the steering wheel that her knuckles turned white. The heart was beating unevenly — not from fear, but from a heavy, vague feeling of trouble that could not be explained out loud. Sergei’s car was standing right at the gate. All covered in dirt, as if he had arrived here not today, but the day before. Tiny drops of recent rain gleamed on the hood.
— How strange… — she barely audibly said.
Her husband assured her that there was a complete blockage at work. Urgent reports, important meetings, delays almost until the night. Even in the morning, when Marina was about to leave, he called and said in a tired voice
— You rest there, lucky. And I have to sit in the office until nightfall.
And now his car stood calmly at the country fence.
Marina slowly got out of the car. The air smelled of raw soil and young spring grass. Somewhere to the side, a bird screamed anxiously. It was so peaceful around that what was happening seemed even more ridiculous and wrong.
The gate was open.
— Serge? — she called as she entered the yard.
Nobody answered.
There was someone else’s handbag on the veranda. Small, light, clearly expensive. Marina stopped so suddenly, as if an invisible barrier had grown in front of her.
She had never seen this thing before.
Ice cold spread across my chest.
And suddenly laughter came from the house. Female.
Marina felt everything falling somewhere down inside.
She unwittingly retreated one step, but a second later she stubbornly straightened her back and climbed onto the porch. The fingers trembled so much that the keys slipped out of the hand and rang on the wooden floor.
The laughter immediately died down.
The door opened almost instantly.
Sergei stood on the threshold.
He turned pale so sharply that Marina understood everything before she saw the woman behind his shoulder.
Young.
About thirty.
With long dark hair and in her, Marinin’s, dressing gown.
Everyone was silent for a few seconds.
Only the wind slightly shook the old window curtain.
— Marin… Why did you come? — was finally squeezed out by Sergei.
This question turned out to be more painful than a slap in the face.
— Do I now need to ask permission to show up at my own dacha? — she answered quietly.
The woman behind Sergei’s back nervously smelled the robe tighter.
— Sergey, I’d probably rather leave… — she muttered.
— Sit! — he threw sharply, but immediately fell silent, as if he himself was afraid of his tone.
Marina looked at her husband as if she had seen this man in front of her for the first time.
Twenty years.
Twenty years marriage they fell apart right now, before her eyes.
One after another, details emerged in my memory that she had not previously attached importance to: late returns, unexpected business trips, his irritation when she offered to go to the dacha together. Even constant talk about selling the site now took on a completely different meaning.
He didn’t hate this dacha at all.
He was just making room here for another life.
— Who is this? — Marina asked in an unexpectedly even voice.
Sergei ran his palm over his face.
— It’s… Lena.
— Long time ago?
He didn’t answer.
And his silence sounded worse than any words.
Marina slowly entered the house. There were two cups, a bottle of wine, and sliced cheese on the table. There was a woman’s sweater hanging on the back of the chair.
Someone else’s life.
At her dacha.
In her kitchen.
In her silence.
She suddenly remembered how she herself chose these curtains. How I planted peonies under the windows. How I dreamed that this was where she and Sergei would meet old age.
Stupid.
— But I loved you, Seryozha, — Marina said quietly, without turning around.
There was heavy silence behind her.
And then Sergei uttered words that she would never be able to forget:
— Marin… I’ve been going to say for a long time. I’m leaving.
Marina didn’t cry.
Not at the same moment, not a minute later, not even when Sergei lowered his eyes, as if ashamed of his own confession. Inside it was as if something had turned into a stone. Strange feeling — when the pain is so severe that the body simply refuses to feel it.
Lena was the first to break the silence.
— I didn’t know you were coming… — she said quietly, hesitating to look Marina in the eyes.
Marina slowly turned to her. The young woman looked confused, but not guilty. And that’s what burned the most.
This means that she already felt like a mistress here.
— Did he tell you that this dacha belongs to his wife? — Marina asked calmly.
Lena turned pale and turned her gaze to Sergei.
He exhaled irritably:
— That’s it, Marin. Just don’t make a scene now.
— Scenes? — steel rang in her voice for the first time. — Did you bring your mistress to my house and still tell me about the scenes?
Sergei twitched his shoulder nervously.
— I’m tired of this double life. Everything has been heading towards this for a long time.
— A long time ago? — Marina grinned crookedly. — And you can imagine I didn’t see anything. She lived next to a man for twenty years and did not notice when he became a stranger.
She walked up to the window. Behind the glass the garden, which she had been growing with her own hands for so many years, was darkening. The apple trees were already preparing to bloom. The evening wind quietly moved the branches of the lilac.
Sergei once helped her here. In the first years, they painted the fence together, fried meat on the grill, and laughed until late at night. Marina suddenly clearly remembered how one day they were sitting right on the wet grass in the rain and eating strawberries from the garden.
Was all this also a deception?
— I didn’t want to hurt you, — Sergei said quietly.
Marina turned around sharply.
— Then why did you cause it?
He was silent for a few seconds, then sat down on a chair and said dully:
— Because next to her I feel alive again.
These words hurt worse than treason itself.
Marina felt something heavy and hot rising in her chest. Not tears. Humiliation.
— So you were dead next to me?
— You lived all the time in this dacha, work, your reports… We have long become just neighbors.
— Don’t you dare pass this on to me! — for the first time she fell into a scream. — I’ve been around all my life! When you lost your job — who pulled us out? When did — debts appear, who took out the loans? Who?
Lena quietly went out onto the veranda, leaving them alone.
Sergei tiredly rubbed his forehead with his palms.
— I don’t want to make a scandal.
— Sure. You’ve already decided everything for both of us.
Marina suddenly felt terrible fatigue. It’s as if in just one evening I became ten years older.
She slowly took off her jacket, put the keys on the table and calmly said:
— Okay. Then leave you.
Sergei raised his head.
— What?
— This is my dacha. Mine. I won’t sell it. And you won’t build your new happy life here either.
He stood up.
— Marina, come on without hysterics.
— Hysteria would be if I broke your head with this vase now, — she answered coldly.
For a second, Sergei was really scared.
Heavy silence reigned in the house again.
And then a sharp pop of the gate came from the street.
Lena disappeared.
Sergei rushed into the yard.
Marina was left alone.
She slowly sat down on a chair and only then noticed someone else’s phone on the table.
Lena’s phone.
The screen suddenly flashed.
And the message that appeared on it made Marina’s fingers cold:
«He still hasn’t told her about the child?»
Marina looked at the glowing screen for a long time, unable to even move. These words seemed to pass through her with a hot blade.
«He still hasn’t told her about the child?»
There was such silence in the house that you could hear the old wall clock ticking measuredly. The same ones that he and Sergei found at the flea market ten years ago. Then he laughed and said that things with the past fill the house with soul.
Now this house seemed alien.
The car door slammed outside. Sergei returned alone. Apparently, Lena left, not wanting to remain a participant in this conversation.
He entered the room and immediately saw the phone in his wife’s hands.
His face has changed.
— Don’t touch other people’s things, — he said sharply.
Marina slowly looked up at him.
— Child?
Sergei froze.
And this answer was enough for her.
Marina felt how everything inside was completely collapsing. Not loud, without screaming, without hysteria — is quiet, scary, irrevocable.
— Will you have a child? — she asked almost in a whisper.
He sat down tiredly on the chair opposite.
— Yes.
One word.
Short.
But it was this that divided her life into «before» and «after».
Marina suddenly laughed. Quiet, nervous, almost crazy.
— What an irony… For twenty years we could not become parents. I was treated, cried at night, went to the doctors… And it turns out that it was not about fate at all.
Sergei sharply looked away.
And at that moment Marina understood everything.
— Wait… — her voice trembled. — Did you know?
Silence.
Heavy.
Destroying.
— Sergey… Did you know that you can’t have children?
He covered his face with his hands.
— I didn’t want to lose you.
Marina felt as if the air was stuck in her chest.
— Lord…
The years of their lives flashed before their eyes. Hopes. Pain. Humiliation in doctors’ offices. Endless tests. Tablets. Tears in the bathroom that she hid so that her husband would not hear.
And he knew all this time.
— The doctors told me even before the wedding, — Sergei quietly admitted. — But then you started getting treatment, hoping… I couldn’t tell the truth.
— And you let me consider myself inferior for twenty years?
— I loved you.
— No, — Marina said firmly. — Love doesn’t do that.
The room became quiet again.
It started to rain outside the window. Large drops hit the roof of the veranda, the young seedlings that Marina brought so carefully in the morning.
It seemed that a whole life had passed since the moment she happily went to the dacha.
Sergei rose.
— I will pack my things and leave in the morning.
Marina didn’t say anything.
He slowly went out into the next room.
And she was left sitting alone.
But strange — there was no more pain.
Only emptiness.
And also… relief.
It was as if the too long performance had finally ended, where she played the role that was imposed on her for many years.
Marina approached the window. Rain flooded the garden. Somewhere in the dark her peonies swayed, which were very soon to bloom.
And suddenly she realized one simple thing:
this dacha has never been a cage for her.
She was her salvation.
In the morning, Marina went out into the yard with a cup of hot tea. After the rain, the air smelled of freshness and wet ground. Sergei has already left. His car was no longer near the gate.
All that remains is silence.
Real.
Alive.
Marina slowly sat down near the garden and carefully began planting seedlings.
For the first time in many years, — is not for the sake of family, not for the sake of marriage, not for anyone else.
And for my own sake.
And it was at that moment that she felt free.
End.