Part 4 — My Husband’s Relatives Took Over the House for the Whole Summer, So I Decided to Leave with the Children — Andrei’s Smile Immediately Disappeared

As soon as I read the message, I called Elena.

“Don’t go alone,” she told me.

“This whole thing could be a trap.”

“That is exactly why you won’t go alone.”

The next morning two people were waiting for me near the old station: Elena and my lawyer, Salome. An unknown man stood several steps away. He was holding a small wooden box.

“Did you write to me?” I asked.

“I am Andrei’s former accountant. My name is Zaza.”

He opened the box. Inside were a flash drive and several folded receipts.

“For years Andrei hid from the family that the apartment had not been purchased only with your money. He used your money, and then took out a loan for a second apartment. He pledged your shared home as security for the loan.”

Salome took the receipts.

“This is already a serious violation.”

“There is more,” Zaza said. “He told Nina Pavlovna that you would soon leave with the children because he intended to sell the apartment.”

I felt the strength disappear from my hands.

“Sell it?”

“Yes. The guests were only a temporary reason. He wanted you to leave the house on your own, and then say that you no longer lived there.”

Elena took another sheet of paper from the box.

“Here we can see the correspondence with the buyer.”

I did not need to read it. I knew Andrei’s handwriting. On the side it said: “The wife will leave soon. I’ll send the children to their grandmother temporarily.”

At that moment I realized that my leaving had not been an escape. I had simply canceled the first step in his plan.

Salome called the police. That same day the bank began examining the loan case, while the apartment sale process was suspended.

Andrei called me once an hour.

At first he shouted.

“You are destroying my life!”

Then he changed his tone.

“Marina, come, let’s talk calmly.”

Finally his voice weakened.

“Please, don’t take the children away from me.”

“I am not taking the children away from you,” I told him. “I am only giving them a safe home.”

I hung up.

That same evening Andrei’s lawyer called Salome.

“I no longer represent my client,” he told her. “He hid the loan documents and the recording from me.”

This was the first moment when I realized that Andrei was left alone in his own lies.

The next day he returned to the old apartment. Nina Pavlovna was sitting in the living room, while Oksana was packing the bags.

“You are all leaving,” Andrei told them.

“But we were supposed to be here all summer!” Oksana shouted.

“You are not anymore.”

Nina Pavlovna laughed bitterly.

“Now you have given everything to your wife?”

Andrei could not answer.

In the evening Salome showed me the audio recording prepared for the court. Andrei’s own voice could be heard in the room.

“Marina must not appear formally. If she finds out, she will complicate everything.”

Hearing this was strange for me. It was as if I were listening to the cruelty of another man, but the voice was his. The person beside whom I had slept for eleven years appeared so clearly in his own words that I could no longer justify anything.

Andrei buried his head in his hands.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“But that is what you said,” Salome replied.

“I was doing it for the family.”

“A family to which your wife and children do not belong?”

He fell silent.

Three weeks later the court issued a temporary decision. The children stayed with me. Andrei was forbidden to sell the apartment and to take on new loan obligations. The examination confirmed that money from my inheritance had gone into the purchase of the apartment, while the agreement proved the right of residence for me and the children.

The final decision was announced several months later. The apartment was divided not by walls, but by responsibility: my share was recognized, Andrei was ordered to reimburse the expenses and to fulfill the obligation to repay the loan. Nina Pavlovna, Oksana, and Pasha were found another place to live. Their anger was no longer my concern.

I was not happy about Andrei’s downfall.

I simply was no longer trying to save him at the cost of my own peace for the first time.

Several months passed.

We still had the small rented apartment, although now it was no longer a temporary shelter. In the morning I woke the children. Lesha went to school, while Kata pinned a small sheet of paper to the bag, on which she drew a house, two windows, and three people.

I enrolled in accounting courses and started working part-time. For the first time in a long while, my salary did not disappear only into groceries and other people’s bills. Every week I saved a small amount for myself.

One evening, when the first snow began to fall, Kata called me to the window.

“Mom, do we really have our own home now?”

I sat down beside her.

“A home is not walls, Kata. A home is the place where you do not have to ask anyone for your place.”

Lesha watched me for a long time.

“Is Dad still trying to come back?”

That day Andrei sent me a message: “I have understood a lot. Can we start over? Just meet me once alone.”

I looked at the screen, then at the children.

The answer was short.

“We are starting over. But without you now.”

Andrei called once more. This time I did not answer.

The next day I found his envelope at the door. Inside was the key to the old apartment and a small note: “One day you will return anyway.”

I held the key in my hand for a long time. A small red-house-shaped plastic tag hung from it—the one Kata had removed from the refrigerator years earlier and then stuck back again.

I did not throw the key into the trash. Nor did I return it to Andrei.

I kept it in a drawer, beside the green notebook where I had written down every paid expense for years.

Then I opened the window. Snow was falling peacefully in the street. Kata was coloring her drawing, while Lesha was making tea in the kitchen.

The small apartment was full of the children’s voices.

And for the first time in a very long while, silence no longer frightened me.

The key was no longer a way back.

It became proof of my freedom.