My spouse left for a student, then returned to pick up a suitcase, but the moment the door opened, the smile vanished from his face.

 

Here is the complete English translation of Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3:

Part 1

On Wednesday at nine in the morning, a colleague laid a statement on my desk that froze the pen in my hand.

— “Marina, look at this,” Nino told me, pointing a finger at the page. “It’s about your apartment.”

My last name was printed on the sheet. The apartment address was mine, too. But below it was a filing claiming I had consented to lease our two-room apartment and grant permission for its future sale.

— “I didn’t sign this,” I said softly.

— “I know. That’s why I didn’t process it.”

The clatter of the printer echoed through the room while rain fell against the windowpane. The corner of the paper trembled slightly in my fingers. I had worked in the property registration department for twenty-three years, so I knew what this text meant. Someone had begun fabricating paperwork around my home.

— “Who submitted it?” I asked.

Nino looked at her computer screen.

— “It arrived electronically under a representative’s name. It purports to be from a notary, but the signature looks suspicious.”

The rush of blood accelerated in my ears. A week ago, Igor had called asking only to collect his suitcase. I had noticed tiredness in his voice then, but I never could have imagined that while gathering his winter clothes, he was reaching for my home.

When I returned home at six in the evening, I found the newly repaired cabinet in the kitchen. The door’s small brass handle was warm because I had checked it several times that morning. For two years, Igor had promised every Saturday to fix the sagging door. In the end, I had attached it myself.

I took hold of that handle and felt for the first time that something had truly changed in this apartment. Not the cabinet—me.

The phone rang.

— “Marin, I’m coming over on Saturday,” Igor said.

— “I know.”

— “Will you be alone?”

— “Why do you care?”

— “I just don’t want an awkward conversation.”

— “Picking up a suitcase doesn’t require a conversation.”

Silence fell over the line.

— “Do you know something?” he finally asked.

His question was so unexpected that I looked at the kitchen clock. It ticked away second by second.

— “What should I know?”

— “Nothing. Just asking.”

— “Come on Saturday at twelve. I’ll open the door for you.”

I hung up and immediately called my daughter, Dasha. She lived in Tyumen and always caught any shift in my voice.

— “Mom, what happened?”

— “Your father is coming on Saturday. But before that, I saw a strange statement at work.”

— “About the apartment?”

— “Yes.”

Dasha was silent for a few seconds.

— “Don’t open the door for him alone.”

— “I don’t know who brought it in yet.”

— “I’m already checking for plane tickets.”

— “Don’t come down. I don’t want this mess to hurt you too.”

— “Mom, you spent your whole life protecting everyone else. For once, let me protect you.”

Sleep didn’t come to me that night. I pulled old papers from the cabinet drawers: my mother’s will, the inheritance certificate, the registration transcript. The documents were stored in a red folder onto which I had sewn a small felt elephant when I was a child. The edges were crumbling, but the lettering was still visible.

I opened the folder and realized instantly that one sheet was missing.

The doorbell rang.

It was eleven at night.

I didn’t move. The bell rang a second time, and then a shadow appeared beneath the door. Someone tried the handle.

I picked up the phone and looked for Nino’s number, but at that moment, heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. Someone spoke softly outside the door:

— “Marina Sergeyevna, I need to talk to you.”

I approached the lock. My hand was resting on the handle when the phone rang in my pocket, illuminating an unknown number on the screen. Before I could answer, the person on the other side of the door uttered the name of the folder…

Part 2

— “I’m talking about the missing sheet from the red folder,” a voice called out from behind the door.

My breath caught in my throat. Only I and my mother’s notary knew about that.

— “Who are you?” I asked.

— “Alexei Markov. From the university’s internal audit team.”

Igor’s university. The same place worked Alina, the twenty-two-year-old student for whose sake my husband had left six weeks ago. I looked through the peephole. Standing in the hallway was a man near fifty, holding a leather briefcase. His face looked tired, but he didn’t resemble someone who comes by at eleven at night to gossip.

— “Are you alone?” I asked.

— “Two investigators are waiting downstairs. If you don’t open the door, they’ll wait for you anyway.”

I unlocked the door slowly.

— “Come in.”

Markov took off his shoes by the door, as if visiting an ordinary home. The smell of damp paper drifted from his briefcase.

— “I came because of your husband,” he told me.

— “My husband is coming for his suitcase on Saturday.”

— “Not just for a suitcase.”

We sat down in the living room. On the table sat my mother’s old porcelain plate, featuring a hairline gold crack along its rim. Markov glanced at it and pulled out papers.

— “Over the last three months, funds were transferred from the university accounting office into a private firm. The company is registered under a name connected to your husband.”

— “Alina?”

— “No. Her uncle. But the transfer descriptions list residential property preparation expenses.”

— “For my apartment?”

— “Presumably.”

Coldness poured into my head. Igor had always told me I couldn’t manage money, got lost in paperwork, and shouldn’t make big decisions without him. Now I realized those words hadn’t just served to demean me. He wanted to convince himself that all of this belonged to him.

— “What is missing from my folder?” I asked.

Markov looked straight at me.

— “A copy of your mother’s will. The copy your husband held.”

— “Igor never had my mother’s will.”

— “Then you’ll have to explain to us how a copy of it ended up in the university archives.”

The wall clock struck midnight. The sound turned my shoulders to ice.

Markov told me that the attempt to transfer the apartment title was only the beginning. Someone wanted me to officially consent to selling the apartment, after which the money would be routed to a different account. The signature was poorly forged, but it looked enough like mine to deceive a careless clerk.

— “Why did you warn me?” I asked.

— “Because I deliberately halted the application. And because I saw your husband in the audit room this morning.”

— “Igor was there?”

— “Yes. He knew the document would create a problem.”

The phone sang again. This time it was Igor.

— “Answer it,” Markov told me.

— “Why?”

— “Maybe he’ll tell us what we need himself.”

The call cut out, but immediately started again. Finally, I pressed the button.

— “Marin, where are you?” Igor’s voice was tense.

— “At home.”

— “Who is with you?”

Markov shook his head to signal I say nothing.

— “Why are you asking me?”

— “Because someone spread false information at my workplace. Did you do something?”

— “I’m just sitting in my apartment.”

— “Marin, don’t play games with me. You won’t be able to keep that apartment alone if something happens.”

My fingers gripped the edge of the table. For years, that voice had instilled fear instead of order in my head. Now, for the first time, I realized the fear was gone.

— “Come on Saturday,” I told him. “Your things will be packed.”

— “And if they aren’t?”

— “Then you’ll have to enter a different way.”

I hung up.

Markov pulled a small recorder from his bag.

— “This conversation was recorded. But we need one more thing. We have to go to the clinic tomorrow morning.”

— “The clinic?”

— “Alina is pregnant. And she filed a statement with us naming your husband as the child’s father. But her testimony only becomes significant if she confirms the documents, too.”

I stood up from my chair.

— “Does Alina know Igor is using my apartment?”

— “That’s precisely what we’re going to find out.”

At seven in the morning, I stood outside the clinic. A faint lamp flickered against the glass door. Markov whispered softly that Alina was already inside.

We walked into the hallway, and I spotted Igor right away. He was holding a small black bag. Seeing us, he first flared up in anger, and then all color drained from his face as if every drop of blood had left his body.

— “Marina, what are you doing here?”

— “I came to hear the truth.”

Just then, the doctor opened the door, holding a sealed envelope. He looked at Markov, then at me, and finally said to Igor:

— “Before this result is opened, you can still confess everything…”

Part 3

— “Don’t open it,” Igor said.

His voice was no longer that self-assured tone with which he had insisted for years that every problem was my fault for being overly sensitive.

The doctor led us into a small room down the corridor. A photograph of a baby’s first heartbeat hung on the wall, while plastic cups filled with cold water sat on the desk. Alina stood by the window, holding her hands over her stomach. Dried teardrops were visible on her face.

— “I won’t sign those papers anymore,” she said.

Igor whirled on her.

— “Alina, quiet.”

— “Enough, Igor Vitalievich.”

For the first time, she called him by his first name and patronymic. That tiny shift unsettled me more than the envelope did.

Markov laid a folder on the table.

— “Here is the audit report, the wire transfers, the electronic statement logs, and the notary’s finding on the forged signature.”

Igor let out a short laugh, but it cut off immediately.

— “All of this could be a mistake.”

— “Then explain to us why a sample of Marina’s signature was sent from your computer,” Markov asked.

Igor looked over at me.

— “Did you check my computer?”

— “Not me,” I said. “Others at your workplace know how to read, too.”

The doctor unsealed the envelope. A light rustle of paper filled the room.

— “This is the genetic test result,” he said. “The sample was taken to establish the child’s paternity.”

Alina lowered her gaze. Igor leaned against the desk.

— “Is the result positive?” he asked.

The doctor shook his head.

— “No. Mr. Igor, you are not the child’s biological father.”

A heavy silence descended.

Alina pressed her hands to her lips. Markov lowered his eyes, as if this news felt heavy even to him. I felt a strange emptiness in my heart. I wasn’t happy. In a single second, I simply saw the entire life Igor had taken from me through lies, and now he was clutching at its remaining shards himself.

— “That’s impossible,” Igor said.

— “The test was conducted using two independent samples,” the doctor answered. “The possibility of error is practically zero.”

Alina said through tears:

— “You told me the apartment was for our future. You told me your wife would give up everything because she wasn’t living with you anymore.”

— “You don’t know anything.”

— “On the contrary. Now I know everything.”

Markov pulled out a second sheet.

— “Yesterday Alina provided us with messages where you explicitly asked her uncle to prepare a sales contract. You even wrote that Marina would sign because ‘she won’t understand the paperwork.'”

I felt my palms grow cold. Igor used to say those words to me often, just phrased differently.

— “You shouldn’t have done this,” I told him.

— “I wanted to save our life.”

— “You abandoned our life six weeks ago.”

— “Marina, please.”

It was the first time he had ever asked for my forgiveness. And that was precisely why I realized he was still hiding something.

Markov’s phone rang. He looked at the screen, and his expression shifted.

— “What happened?” I asked.

— “The police received additional logs from the university. Your husband wasn’t acting alone.”

Igor pushed his chair back.

— “Who else is involved?”

Markov looked at me.

— “The person whose name appears at the bottom of the copy of your mother’s will.”

I realized instantly that this was no longer just about Igor and Alina. I remembered a stranger who had visited our home a few days before my mother passed away—a man I hadn’t paid attention to back then.

Markov showed me a photo on his phone.

The picture captured a notary’s room from twenty-five years ago. I was standing in the corner, holding the red folder. Standing behind me was that same man.

— “This is your husband’s superior,” Markov said. “And we just learned that the missing page from that file was kept with him.”

Just then, a text message arrived on my phone. Sent from an unknown number, it contained a single sentence: “If you want to know why Igor chose this exact apartment, come alone to the old station tonight…”