The crystalline sound of broken glass pierced the silence that had settled over the kitchen. Marina slowly lowered her hands into the sink, the sharp fragments from the wine glass — a gift commemorating their twentieth wedding anniversary — pricking the pads of her fingers.
“Are you ready?” Her voice was unusually calm, as if it belonged to someone else.
Vladimir stood frozen in the doorway, gripping his travel bag. His broad form, once a symbol of steadfastness for Marina, now seemed out of place — like a bear accidentally wandering into a fragile porcelain shop.
“Marin, why are you acting this way? I explained…” His feet shuffled uncertainly, torn between stepping inside or retreating.
“Explained what exactly?” She turned, drying her hands on her apron. “That you’re bored? That three decades together is too long for one woman? Or that twenty-five-year-old Anya handles your… midlife crisis better?”
A heavy silence thickened the air, dense as morning fog over a river.
“It just happened,” he said, eyes darting around, resting on familiar objects: their Prague-bought clock, family photos, and a vase Marina despised but kept because it was a gift from his mother.
“Just happened?” Marina suddenly laughed, a sound that chilled Vladimir to his core. “You packed for two weeks. I found jewellery store receipts, noticed you hiding your phone. And you tell me it ‘just happened’?”
He shifted uneasily. How many times had he rehearsed this conversation? Ten? Twenty? Yet now, every prepared phrase had vanished.
“I’m fifty-seven, Vova. Where am I supposed to go now?” Her voice faltered for the first time.
“You’ll manage,” he finally dared meet her eyes. “You’ve always been stronger than me.”
“Did I ask for that?”
“Thirty years, Volodya. Exactly thirty years today since we married.”
He swallowed hard, nodding.
“Marin, I…”
“Go,” she interrupted, turning away. “Just go. Anya is waiting.”
The door clicked softly closed. Marina sank onto a stool, finally allowing tears to flow. They traced salty paths down her face and lips. Minutes or hours passed — time dissolved into the emptiness filling the apartment.
The phone vibrated on the table: “Mom, how are you? Dad called…” It was her daughter, clever Katya, with a stubborn look like her father’s and dimpled cheeks.
Marina set the phone aside without answering. What could she say? “Your father left for a girl younger than you?” “I am alone at fifty-seven?” “I’m scared, daughter?”
The initial weeks blurred into a relentless cycle of sleepless nights, tears, and crushing silence. Marina wandered through the home like a ghost, facing traces of thirty years they shared: his mug with a cracked handle — discard it? Keep it? Smash it in anger? His razor in the bathroom, slippers by the bed, sweater scented with a familiar cologne.
- Each item a reminder of the life that once was.
- Every corner a testament to their shared history.
- The apartment, now an echoing chamber of memories.
“Mom, you’re barely eating,” Katya said, visiting each weekend, replenishing the fridge with food that spoiled untouched. “Maybe we should see a doctor?”
“Stuffing me with medicines?” Marina waved her off. “I’ll survive somehow. Not the first or last to suffer.”
Yet deep inside, she was uncertain if she could truly survive. Nightly, clutching her pillow, Marina asked herself repeatedly: When did I stop being desirable to him? When did he start looking past me? Why didn’t I see it sooner?
“You’ve really buried yourself, Marinushka,” neighbor Nina Petrovna caught her near the entrance. “Come with us Saturday to the library club! Fascinating lectures and decent crowd.”
“A club?” Marina shrugged. “Too old for clubs now.”
“We’ll see,” Nina said, shaking her head. “I’m five years older and still out there. After my second husband left, can you imagine? Plus, I bumped into Arkady Semyonovich recently!”
Marina couldn’t imagine wanting another man beside her.
But one morning, staring in the mirror, she barely recognized the woman reflected back: dull eyes, grey skin, wrinkles deeper than before. Was that really her? Was this all she had become?
“Enough,” she whispered. “Enough, Marina Sergeyevna.”
An hour later, she sat in a salon chair.
“What are we doing?” the young stylist with bright pink hair asked.
“Everything,” Marina replied unexpectedly. “Change me completely.”
When Katya arrived home with groceries that evening, she froze in the doorway:
“Mom!? Your hair…”
Marina ran her hand through the short strands shaded in fashionable ash tones.
“Like it?”
“Love it!” Her daughter smiled brightly. “You look… younger.”
“And I feel different,” Marina confessed. “You know, I thought… maybe we could refresh the apartment too? I’ve always wanted light walls instead of these wallpaper.”
Katya hugged her mother. For the first time in weeks, warmth spread inside Marina.
She started small — enrolling in computer literacy classes at the very library club Nina mentioned. Then renovation followed: lightened walls, new furniture, clearing years of accumulated clutter.
Key Insight: Sometimes the smallest steps spark the most profound transformations in life.
“You’re glowing today, Marina!” the computer course instructor Oleg Petrovich remarked. “Something good happened?”
“I finally organized the attic,” she laughed. “Found drawings I made twenty years ago. Turns out I used to paint quite well.”
“Then why not start again?” he suggested. “We even have a painting studio.”
Little by little, Marina painted once more, hesitantly at first, then with growing joy. Her bright, slightly naive watercolors surprisingly gained the interest of the local exhibition organizers.
“You should’ve seen Oleg Petrovich’s face,” she told Katya after the opening. “He looked as if he’d discovered Van Gogh in my work!”
“Mom, doesn’t he… you know… fancy you?” Katya asked cautiously.
“What?” Marina laughed. “No, he just likes my paintings.”
But at night in bed, she caught herself wondering: would it be so bad if he did?
Carrying grocery bags, fumbling for keys, Marina’s phone suddenly rang.
“Yes, Katya, I remember about tomorrow! I’ll bake my special pies, no worries.” She pressed the phone to her ear with her shoulder.
“Mom, something’s…” her daughter’s voice sounded unusual.
“What’s wrong?” Marina wrestled the door open.
“Dad called.”
Marina froze at the threshold. Three years since he slammed that door behind him. Three years filled only with curt messages about dividing property through lawyers.
“And what did he want?” Her voice was steady, almost indifferent.
“He asked about you. Said he wants to see you.”
She placed the bags on the kitchen table. Her gaze swept over the newly painted pale blue walls, white cupboards, and hand-painted ceramic tiles she had chosen with delight. Vladimir had never seen this kitchen.
“Mom, you there?”
“Yes, yes, just thinking,” Marina smiled softly. “Tell Dad I don’t need polite visits.”
“He said…” Katya hesitated, “They broke up. A few months ago.”
Something stirred inside Marina — not pain, long dulled, but surprise. This news used to turn her life upside down; now it sparked only fleeting curiosity.
“So that’s why he remembered I exist?” She began unpacking. “How sweet of him.”
“Mom, he sounded… strange,” a note of worry in Katya’s voice. “Older, maybe.”
“Three years is no joke; we all age,” Marina shrugged. “Well, if he wants to talk, he can call. The number hasn’t changed.”
She hung up and approached the hallway mirror. Yes, she aged too. Wrinkles around her eyes grew more obvious; grey streaks appeared which she no longer tried to hide. Yet her eyes held something missing three years ago — calmness and perhaps wisdom.
That evening, reclining in her new rocking chair with a book, the phone rang.
“Marin?”
The voice was so familiar — yet distant.
“Hello, Volodya,” she set the book aside. “Katya said you wanted to talk.”
“Yes, I…” He stumbled. “May I come by? It’s awkward over the phone.”
“Come,” she glanced at the clock. “Is six tomorrow okay? I have plans before then.”
Her “plans” involved gatherings with new friends from the art studio, now a weekly ritual. After that awaited Oleg — more than just a computer teacher, but what exactly? Friend? Admirer? Marina still hesitated to define their relationship.
“Of course,” there was disappointment in his voice. Once, he would have said, “I’m still at work at six,” or “Can we do earlier?” She would have rearranged her plans for him — not now.
The next day slipped by swiftly. Marina didn’t prepare for the meeting — no treats, no hair fuss, no special outfit. She wore a comfortable house dress and her favorite cardigan.
Exactly at six, the doorbell rang.
She opened the door barely recognizing the man standing there. Vladimir looked drawn, with sunken eyes and slouched shoulders. His pale complexion aged him beyond sixty.
“Come in,” she stepped aside.
He entered hesitantly, pausing as if in a museum, carefully surveying the new setting, the paintings on the walls, the trinkets he never knew.
“Are these yours?” he gestured toward the watercolors framed simply.
“Mine,” she placed cups on the table. “I recently exhibited them at the city gallery. Sit down.”
He lowered onto a chair, still amazed.
“It’s very… light here now.”
“Yes, I finally made everything the way I wanted,” she smiled. “So, tell me, how’s your life?”
Vladimir shrugged vaguely.
“Complicated. Anna… well, we’re separated. Turns out she always wanted children, and I…”
“You raised yours and didn’t want more,” Marina finished for him.
“Yes,” he looked up at her. “Marin, I…”
The doorbell interrupted. Marina glanced at the clock and smiled apologetically.
“Sorry, I’m expecting a guest.”
“A guest?” Vladimir raised his brows, confused. “Is this bad timing?”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Marina moved toward the door.
Opening it, she beamed.
“Oleg, come in!” She stepped back, letting the man enter.
A silver-haired, fit-looking man around their age entered the hallway, his expressive brown eyes and warm smile welcoming. He carried a bouquet of wildflowers and a bottle of wine.
“Sorry I’m late,” he handed the flowers to Marina, noticing Vladimir only after. “Oh, I didn’t know you had visitors.”
“Meet Oleg, my… friend. And this is Vladimir, my ex-husband.”
The men shook hands. Vladimir felt the firm, confident grip of Oleg and instinctively straightened his back.
“Pleased to meet you,” Oleg said with a nod. “Marina has told me a lot about you.”
“Really?” Vladimir looked surprised, glancing at Marina, who placed the flowers into a vase.
“Of course,” Oleg removed his coat. “Thirty years together is an important chapter in anyone’s life.”
His tone held no mockery or challenge — only a calm acceptance of reality. Vladimir felt uncomfortable, like an outsider in this new, unfamiliar version of his own home.
“I should probably go,” he stepped toward the door. “You have plans…”
“A poetry evening at the literary cafe,” Marina nodded unfazed. “Is everything truly over between us? Or did you want to discuss something else?”
Words rehearsed the previous day stuck in Vladimir’s throat. What could he say? That he made a mistake? Realized the value of what they had? That life with Anya became a nightmare of constant demands and dissatisfaction? That in his empty rented apartment, every night he remembered this home, her scent, her voice?
“I just wanted to know how you are,” he finally managed. “I see you’re doing well. That… makes me glad.”
“Thank you, Volodya,” her voice was free of anger, only serene detachment. “I believe things will improve for you too.”
He nodded, understanding it was neither a question nor an invitation to continue. Oleg gracefully stepped aside, pretending to admire the paintings on the wall, but Vladimir felt his presence with every fiber.
“You’ve changed,” he suddenly said, surprised by his own words.
“People change, Volodya,” she shrugged. “Life doesn’t stop, even when it feels like the world collapsed.”
He wanted to say more but found no words left. Nodding farewell, Vladimir left and slowly made his way to the elevator. Thoughts flickered through his mind: her new hairstyle, light walls replacing dark wallpaper, watercolors signed “MS” in the corner, a stranger with wildflowers she loved — how did he know?
And yet, living with her for thirty years, he never bothered to remember.
From the slightly open apartment door, Marina’s laughter echoed – clear, bright, so familiar yet so unreachable now. Vladimir felt a tightening inside. What was he searching for by returning? Forgiveness? Comfort? Proof she suffered without him as he longed for her?
He found only a simple truth: life moves forward. For everyone. Even when it feels like time should pause, waiting for you to play out and return to your accustomed place.
Stepping out of the building, he looked up at the windows of their — no, now only her — fifth-floor apartment. Light shone from all rooms, transforming the panes into warm rectangles of hope amid the chilly fall dusk.
In these windows lived a different life now — bright, filled with new colors, fresh experiences, and perhaps new happiness. A life in which he no longer had a place.
Vladimir slowly walked to the bus stop, tears welling up. Not from self-pity, but from understanding: sometimes what we claim as ours slips through our fingers because of our own blindness. And no apologies can restore the broken mirror of the past.
The woman he left three years ago remained only in his memories. From the doors of the literary cafe came a different Marina — brush in hand and light in her eyes, a light he, shamefully, never managed to ignite during their thirty years together.
Conclusion: Marina’s story reveals a profound transformation following a painful separation. Through courage and self-discovery, she reclaims her identity, embracing new passions and relationships. This narrative emphasizes that even after years of hardship, renewal and joy remain within reach when one dares to start anew.