Part 4 — My spouse left for the student’s place and returned to pick up a suitcase, but the moment the door opened, the smile vanished from their face.

 

Part 4

At five in the evening, I did not go to the old station.

Markov called the police immediately and logged the message as part of the official case. On the way, Igor tried calling me repeatedly, but I had switched my phone to silent.

— “Marina, answer it,” Dasha told me when I explained everything to her. “You shouldn’t be left alone right now.”

— “I am not alone anymore.”

— “What do you mean?”

— “I mean that for the first time, I am not doing what others force me to do.”

That same evening, two investigators arrived at our apartment building. Wet umbrellas lay piled in front of the elevator, and the lobby smelled of dust burning on the heater. They took my statement, checked the computer, and photographed every page inside the red folder.

The next day, Igor was barred from entering the university.

His attorney called me.

— “Mrs. Marina, perhaps this matter could be settled through negotiation.”

— “What is there to negotiate?”

— “You withdraw your legal claims, and Mr. Igor will forfeit any demands regarding the apartment.”

— “He never had any legal right to demand this apartment.”

The attorney let out a sigh.

— “You know as well as I do that you lived together for twenty-five years.”

— “Living together is not a license to forge property deeds.”

— “He regrets it.”

— “Regret doesn’t alter documents.”

— “Then my services end here,” he said. “I was defending a man I believed still possessed a shred of truth to tell. Now I see he was merely trying to buy time.”

A few days later, Igor personally requested a meeting. We sat in the investigators’ office. Resting on the desk was a recorder—the small, black, silent device Markov had left with me that night.

— “Is this necessary?” Igor asked.

— “Yes,” the investigator replied.

They switched on the recording.

His own voice filled the room:

“Marina won’t understand the paperwork. If we push her correctly, she’ll sign. She lived with me for twenty-five years—who in court is going to believe her over me?”

Igor froze.

I sat beside him, watching him hear his own words spoken aloud from an outside source for the very first time. His face wore the expression of a child catching sight of his own angry reflection in a mirror for the first time.

— “I didn’t say it like that,” he whispered.

— “That is your voice,” I told him.

— “Marina…”

— “It’s your voice.”

The recording played on:

“Once the apartment is sold, we’ll have enough funds for the studio. Then we’ll move to another city. Marina won’t be able to prove a thing.”

We had already heard these words in Alina’s room, but listening to the official recording changed everything. Now the words stood in the room—heavy, living, and leaving no path back.

Igor buried his face in his hands.

— “I didn’t want it to end like this.”

— “I didn’t want it either,” I said. “But you chose the ending the moment you closed the door and left for another woman.”

The legal proceedings stretched on for months. The university terminated his contract. His superior was implicated as well: he was the one who had supplied Igor with copies of the old documents and attempted to enter altered records into the notary archive. Police recovered the missing page at his country house, hidden in a metal box behind the fireplace.

My mother’s signature on that page was authentic, but fresh ink traces were detected. Forensic analysis confirmed the will had been photographed and artificially modified. My mother had left the apartment to me. In its entirety.

I did not defeat Igor in court. He was defeated by his own recordings and forged documents.

On the day of the judge’s ruling, pale February sunlight filtered through the courtroom window. Igor did not look in my direction.

— “Full ownership of the apartment remains entirely yours,” the judge declared. “The document forgery case will be referred for separate prosecution.”

I nodded.

I felt nothing beyond that. No joy. No desire for victory.

Only exhaustion.

Returning home, I opened his closet for the first time. Three suits hung inside, and an old gym bag sat on a shelf. He had already taken his suitcase that morning before the court session began. The closet looked empty, though the shadow of a frame remained on the wall—where our wedding photograph had hung for years.

I pulled the photo from the shelf.

Beneath the glass, I stood in a white dress, while he smiled as if he had known forever how to hide the truth from me.

I tucked the photo into a drawer.

The empty room did not frighten me for the first time.

Three weeks later, Dasha arrived. She took the train from Tyumen and knocked three times on the door in the morning—just as she used to do as a child when returning home.

— “Mom, open the door.”

— “I’m already opening it.”

She held a small paper bag containing two pastries and my favorite tangerine tea.

We sat in the kitchen. The newly secured cabinet door closed quietly, no longer sagging on its hinges.

— “Do you know what I remember most?” Dasha asked me.

— “What?”

— “When Dad left, I thought you would vanish too. As if he had taken half the house with him.”

I stirred my tea with a spoon.

— “He never owned half this house.”

— “I know. But you couldn’t feel that back then.”

I lowered my head.

— “I feel it now.”

Dasha placed her hand over mine.

— “I am proud of you.”

Those words carried far more weight than any court verdict. My whole life, I had believed I was a strong woman because I solved everyone else’s problems. That day, I realized strength sometimes simply means no longer carrying someone else’s burden on your back.

Two months later, I was transferred to a different department at work. The new office was small, but its window overlooked a park. In the mornings, children left footprints in the snow, while I helped people register their homes correctly.

On my desk, I set a small box containing tools: a measuring tape, a pencil, a small screwdriver, and that brass handle that had been taken off the old cabinet door.

Dasha had told me not to throw it away.

— “Why?”

— “Because you fixed yourself what he couldn’t fix for years.”

Winter slowly gave way. Toward the end of March, the first warm sunlight poured into my apartment. I washed the kitchen curtains, hung a new clock on the wall, and set a small table in the living room to read books in the evening.

Igor appeared one last time.

He left a letter by the door:

Marina, I know I ruined everything. If only you would speak to me just once. I have nothing left now except the years we spent together.

I held the letter in my hand for a long time. Then I stored it in a drawer beside the wedding photo.

Not because I wanted to reply.

Because the existence of the past did not mean returning to it.

That evening, I sent him a single short text message:

I am handing your remaining things over to the neighbor tomorrow. You will not enter this house again.

A reply arrived immediately:

Do you truly not love me anymore?

I looked at the screen, and for the first time, that question failed to cut deep.

— “Love is not abandoning yourself,” I said aloud.

Then I turned off the phone.

A few weeks later, the first snow fell. Dasha was with me, baking a cake in the kitchen. I stood by the window holding the small brass handle I had taken off the cabinet and placed on the shelf.

Outside, snow fell onto the roof of the entryway—the same one Igor had walked out from with his suitcase. Back then, I thought his departure would leave the house empty.

Now, the house was breathing.

I closed the cabinet door gently.

And this time, it obeyed me.