Vera parked her car in front of a neat two-story house and glanced at her watch — she had arrived half an hour earlier than the appointed time.
At the last moment, the idea struck her to surprise her sister by buying her favorite blueberry pie from that very bakery on the corner. Natalia had always adored their signature pastries.
Taking a small mirror from her purse, Vera critically examined her reflection. At fifty, she looked dignified: her grey hair had only just touched her temples, and the wrinkles around her eyes appeared only when she smiled.
Today she had chosen her outfit especially carefully: a dark blue dress, which Viktor adored, and pearl earrings — a gift from her sister on her fortieth birthday.
Thoughts of her husband made her frown. In recent months, something had changed between them. Viktor had begun staying late at work, there had been sudden business trips, and most importantly — he seemed to have withdrawn, erecting an invisible barrier between them.
Vera tried to banish the unsettling thoughts, attributing everything to a normal relationship crisis. After all, twenty-five years of marriage was no small matter.
Taking the pie box and her purse, she headed toward the house. Natalia had moved here just a month ago, following her divorce. “New life — new place,” she had said over the phone back then.
Vera remembered how her sister had excitedly described the spacious living room with panoramic windows and the cozy kitchen. Now, finally, she would see it all with her own eyes.
Climbing the porch, Vera retrieved the key that Natalia had handed her “just in case” through a mutual friend. The front door opened easily. The house was in semi-darkness — the curtains were drawn, creating a mysterious atmosphere. Soft music floated in from somewhere — it sounded like jazz.
“Natasha?” Vera softly called as she stepped into the hall. There was no answer, but muffled voices emanated from the living room. Smiling, Vera followed the sound, anticipating how delighted her sister would be at the unexpected visit.
She had just opened her mouth to announce her presence when she froze at the threshold of the living room.
The pie box slipped from her trembling fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud.
For a split second, Vera wondered if her eyes were deceiving her. On the couch, in the romantic half-light lit only by the flicker of candles, sat two people. Natalia, her younger sister, was comfortably nestled in a man’s arms, her head resting on his shoulder. That man was Viktor — her husband.
On the coffee table stood an almost empty bottle of expensive red wine — the same one Viktor always bought for special occasions. Two glasses, remnants of dessert, the subdued light — everything spoke of an intimate moment. Vera felt nausea rising in her throat.
“Surprise… huh?” her voice emerged unnaturally calm, almost mechanical. Natalia jerked away from Viktor, her face paling so much that the freckles on her nose resembled ink blots.
“Vera, I…” Natalia began, but the words caught in her throat. Viktor slowly rose from the couch, his usually confident face contorting with guilt and fear. He looked like a mischievous schoolboy caught red-handed.
“Don’t bother, Natashenka,” Vera said, using her sister’s diminutive name with such bitterness that it made her flinch.
“Now I understand why you insisted we meet at exactly six. Were you afraid I’d catch your little… idyll?”
All those months of Viktor’s strange behavior suddenly made sense. Late returns home, mysterious phone calls after which he would step into another room, business trips to the same cities where Natalia’s conferences were supposedly held. How could she have been so blind?
“That’s not what you think,” Viktor began, taking a step forward, but Vera raised her hand to stop him.
“Really? And what should I think, Vitya? That you’re here discussing the weather? Or perhaps planning my birthday?” Her voice dripped with poisonous irony.
“By the way, how long have you been… planning?” Viktor asked.
Natalia got up from the couch, nervously tugging at her dress.
“Six months,” she whispered, not looking up. “Vera, I know it’s unforgivable.”
“Six months,” Vera echoed, sinking into an armchair. “So when you cried on my shoulder after your divorce, telling me how lonely you were… you were already with him?”
Viktor dashed to the bar and grabbed a glass.
“Let’s talk calmly. Want a drink?”
“Oh, now you suggest I have a drink?” Vera laughed, though her laughter was more like a sob. “How noble of you, dear.”
She scanned the living room — now noticing the small details that had eluded her at first. A man’s jacket draped over the back of a chair — the very one she had given Viktor last Christmas. A photograph on the mantel, where the three of them — her, Natalia, and Viktor — were laughing against the backdrop of the sea. That same vacation from a year ago. Had something already been amiss?
“I always knew you envied me, Natasha,” Vera said quietly.
“Since childhood. My toys, my successes, my relationships… But I never thought you would go so far.”
“That’s not envy!” Natalia shrieked. “We… we just fell in love with each other.”
“Fell in love?” Vera advanced, stepping almost right up to her sister. “And what about my love, my trust? Where did you put them? In the same basket where you hid your dirty secrets?”
Viktor tried to interpose himself between them:
“Vera, listen…”
“No, you listen,” her voice turned cold and hard. “Twenty-five years of marriage, Vitya. Fifteen years of friendship, Natasha. And all this time I thought I knew you. How foolish I was.”
Vera slowly approached the table, picked up the half-finished glass, and drained it in one gulp.
“You know, what’s the funniest part, Natasha? I came here to ask for your advice. I wanted to share my fears, ask how to save my marriage. I thought maybe I was doing something wrong.”
Natalia flinched, as if struck by a slap.
“Vera, I didn’t mean to… It just happened…”
“Just happened?” Vera set the glass down with such force that it cracked. “Did you accidentally end up in my husband’s bed? Or perhaps you tripped and fell into his arms?”
Viktor stepped forward:
“Stop, you’re hurting us…”
“Am I hurting?” Vera turned to him. “And you, have you made everyone happy? Decided that one sister wasn’t enough, so you had to try for a second?”
A heavy silence filled the room. Only the ticking of the clock marked the seconds of this nightmare. Vera looked at her wedding ring — a simple gold band she had never removed in twenty-five years. Slowly, she slid it off her finger.
“Here,” she said, placing the ring on the table. “You can keep this too. Just like everything else you took from me.”
“Vera, please…” Natalia’s voice trembled. “Let’s talk.”
“About what? About how you planned to tell me? Or about how you laughed behind my back?” Vera moved toward the door. “You know, I’m even grateful I arrived early. At least I didn’t have to listen to your pathetic excuses over a festive dinner.”
Three months later.
Vera sat in her new apartment, reviewing the divorce documents. Everything turned out to be simpler than she had thought: Viktor did not argue, he agreed to all the terms. Perhaps his conscience had awakened, or maybe he just wanted to close this chapter as soon as possible.
The phone vibrated — another message from Natalia. There were now more than a dozen, all unread:
— “Forgive me…”
— “I know it’s unforgivable…”
— “Can we at least talk?”
Vera opened the latest message:
— “Sister, I can’t live like this. I miss you. Please, give me a chance to explain.”
Smirking, she deleted all the messages. Then she opened a childhood photograph on her desktop — her and her sister embracing and laughing. She gazed at it for a few seconds, then decisively sent it to the trash.
“Sometimes you have to let go in order to move forward,” she said aloud.
Standing by the window, Vera looked out at the evening city. Her new job at the publishing house turned out to be interesting, and her colleagues were friendly. Yesterday, she had even agreed to an invitation to the theater from the head of marketing — just a friendly outing, but it already felt like a small victory.
The pain hadn’t disappeared — she had simply learned to live with it. Like a splinter that, over time, becomes encased in tissue. Sometimes it pricked, reminding her of its presence, but it no longer prevented her from breathing.
On the windowsill stood a pot of violets — the only thing she had taken from the old house. Once, Natalia had given them, saying, “They’re resilient, just like us, little sister.”
Vera watered the flowers and smiled:
“You’re right, Natasha. Resilient. But now each flower is in its own pot.”
Outside, the rain began to fall, washing away the past and opening a clean slate for a new story. A story in which Vera was finally the heroine of her own life.