Hiding behind a pine tree in the forest, Ksyusha wanted to surprise her husband, but froze when she overheard his phone conversation.
Ksyusha crouched by the sprawling pine and couldn’t believe her eyes: an entire little family of porcini mushrooms was lined up at the very roots, as if someone had deliberately arranged them in a row.
The warm September sun filtered through the dense crowns of firs and pines, creating a whimsical play of light and shadow on the moss-covered ground.
A rich scent of pine needles hung in the air, mixed with the smell of damp leaves and that special freshness the forest gets after rain.
She took out a knife with a wooden handle — a gift from her father many years ago — and carefully began cutting the mushrooms.
Each one she placed in a woven basket she had made herself last spring from willow twigs.
The caps of the porcini were firm and dense, without a single wormhole. She could already imagine how she would clean them in the kitchen that evening, how the house would fill with the smell of fried potatoes with mushrooms, how Alina would ask for seconds, and how Lesha would say that no one makes a mushroom fry better than his wife.
“Ksyush!” her husband’s voice rang out from somewhere deep in the forest. “Ksyush, where are you?”
Ksyusha giggled and quickly hid behind the wide trunk of the pine.
Lesha was always sneaking up on her at home and startling her for fun —
when she washed the dishes after dinner, hung laundry on the balcony, or stood at the stove stirring soup.
He would always lay a hand on her shoulder unexpectedly, and she would jump, dropping whatever she was holding. Now it was her turn to scare him a little and laugh.
She pressed herself against the rough bark of the old pine and listened to the approaching footsteps.
Lesha walked slowly through the forest, stopping from time to time, probably scanning the grass for mushrooms.
The moss mixed with fir needles crunched in a familiar way beneath his boots; somewhere in the distance, a woodpecker was tapping.
Then she heard her husband talking to someone. At first she thought he had run into other mushroom pickers.
That happened often, especially on weekends, when half of Tver goes to the suburban forests.
But no other voices were heard.
Apparently, someone had called him. Ksyusha was about to step out of her hiding place and show herself to him, but then she made out his words — and the basket slipped from her fingers, the mushrooms scattering across the mossy ground like precious pearls from a broken string.
“Katyush, of course I miss you terribly and can’t wait to see you!” Lesha said tenderly. “Yes, my darling, kisses, I love you madly, hugs!”
Ksyusha pressed her back against the rough pine bark. She could hardly breathe.
She had been married to him for ten years, they had a daughter, Alina, a happy family — and suddenly it all felt so fragile, like a house of cards that would collapse with the slightest breath.
Her husband continued talking for another five minutes, but she no longer listened.
When Lesha finally ended the call, his footsteps began moving away in the opposite direction. He was going deeper into the forest, and she remained alone with her thoughts and the mushrooms scattered across the ground.
Ksyusha sat down on the soft moss at the roots of the pine and lifted her head to the sky.
Through the dense weave of branches, the clear blue sky was visible — so pure and distant that she wanted to dissolve into its blueness and think of nothing at all.
She always did this in the hardest moments of her life — sought answers and comfort from her father, who had passed away when she was fifteen.
It had been autumn then too, the birches outside the hospital window had been yellowing, and it had seemed that life was over and happiness would never return.
But she managed. She finished school, met Lesha, gave birth to Alina, built a family.
And now — again autumn, again yellow leaves, and again it felt like everything was falling apart.
“Why me, Dad?” she quietly asked the sky.
There was no answer, of course. There never had been, no matter how often she asked.
The branches rustled overhead, and somewhere far off a cuckoo called.
Ksyusha sat like that for another fifteen minutes, then wiped her cheeks with her sleeve and decided to pull herself together.
Tears and self-torment had never helped anyone — but logic and a cool head could work miracles.
She gathered the scattered mushrooms back into the basket, stood up, brushed fir needles from her jacket and jeans, and looked around.
In the distance, between the trunks, she saw her husband’s silhouette in his plaid shirt. Lesha had been wearing that shirt to the forest for three years now — bought in some shop on Trekhsvyatskaya Street.
Ksyusha slowly walked toward him, thinking on the way about what she was going to do next.
Seeing his wife approaching, Lesha immediately broke into a wide smile and looked at her with tenderness and concern, the way one looks at a beloved child who played in the sandbox and got dirty from head to toe.
“Good Lord, what is this!” He rushed to her and examined her face. “My messy girl! You’re all smudged!”
Lesha moistened his index finger with saliva and began gently rubbing a dark smudge on her left cheek. He did it with such exaggerated tenderness that Ksyusha could barely stop herself from brushing his hand away.
But she held herself in an iron grip and let him finish.
“There, much better,” Lesha said with satisfaction. “Now you’re my beauty again!”
He wrapped his arms around his wife, pulled her close, and kissed her on the lips — long and gently, the way one kisses the most precious person in the world.
“I love you more than my own life!” he said, looking straight into her eyes. “You know that, right?”
Ksyusha continued staring at him intently, studying every tiny wrinkle near his eyes, every mole on his tanned face.
“What?” Lesha frowned slightly, noticing her intense gaze.
Ksyusha forced herself to smile a little.
“Nothing special. I’m just thinking how lucky I am to have you as my husband. I love you very much too!”
Satisfied with her answer, Lesha let out a relieved breath and crouched down beside her basket. He began inspecting the contents, running his hands through the mushrooms and evaluating the quality of her haul.
“Wow! A real treasure!” he said enthusiastically. “Just look at these beauties! Where did you find them?”
“Over there, by that big pine,” Ksyusha nodded toward her recent hiding spot.
Ksyusha leaned over him, gripping the handle of the mushroom knife tightly.
When they left the forest and headed to where they had parked their car, the sun was already sinking toward the horizon.
Their Niva stood on the edge of a small clearing. There were three other cars nearby — apparently, they were not the only ones who decided to spend their Saturday in the forest.
Lesha opened the trunk and placed both baskets inside.
“Get in, darling,” he said, opening the passenger door for her. “Let’s go pick up our daughter.”
Ksyusha settled into the front seat and fastened her seatbelt. When her husband got behind the wheel and started the engine, she said casually:
“Lyosh, when we pick up Alina from your mom’s, remind me to stop by the hardware store.”
“What do you need there?” Lesha shifted into first gear and began slowly pulling away.
Ksyusha studied her nails closely, dirt packed underneath them…
“Nothing special,” she answered after a pause. “I want to buy some dill seeds. I’m thinking of growing a few bunches on the kitchen windowsill.”
“Ah, got it. Good idea!” Lesha nodded approvingly. “Alright, we’ll stop by, no problem.”
He turned on the radio, and soft music filled the car. Some singer was singing about love, loyalty, and how happiness could only be found with one single person.
Ksyusha smirked—how naïve that sounded in her current situation.
She stayed silent the entire drive to Grandma Evgenia Petrovna’s house, staring out the window.
She reclined her seat a little and turned her head, watching the trees flash by behind the glass.
When they parked near the five-story building on Zhelyabova Street, where Grandma Zhenya lived, and climbed to the third floor, seven-year-old Alina greeted them with delighted squeals and hugs.
She had spent two days with her grandmother while her parents worked and was bursting with impressions and stories.
“Grandma and I went to the puppet theater yesterday! They had this play about Little Red Riding Hood! And then we bought ice cream by the fountain!”
“That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” Ksyusha hugged her daughter and kissed the top of her head. “You’ll tell us all about it at home.”
Grandma Zhenya, a gray-haired woman in a housecoat, peeked out from the kitchen with a towel in her hands.
“Thank you so much, Evgenia Petrovna,” Lesha said. “We really appreciate your help.”
“Oh, please, it’s nothing. I only enjoy spending time with my granddaughter. Don’t hesitate, bring her over more often.”
Meanwhile, Alina packed her things into a small backpack. They said their goodbyes, went downstairs, and headed home.
When they returned to their two-room apartment on Moskovsky Avenue, they were greeted by a deafening scream from their parrot, Pavlusha:
“Guests have arrived! Guests have arrived!”
He had learned this phrase last year when Alina’s classmates came over for her birthday.
Since then, Pavlusha joyfully shouted it every time he heard the front door open.
“Pavlusha, what are you saying!” Alina laughed loudly, tossing her hat and jacket right on the hallway floor. “We’re not guests—we live here! This is our home!”
She rushed to the big cage where the green budgie sat and began talking to him:
“Say: ‘The owners are home!’ Come on, repeat after me!”
But Pavlusha stubbornly stuck to his usual line, shifting from foot to foot and bobbing his bright little head.
Retraining him was nearly impossible—once he learned something, he repeated it endlessly.
Meanwhile, Ksyusha went into the hallway and carefully placed her purchase from the hardware store on the top shelf of the built-in wardrobe.
“Let’s go wash your hands!” Lesha scooped his daughter up and carried her to the bathroom. “You smell like Grandma’s apartment from a kilometer away!”
Ksyusha took a big bag of potatoes from the fridge and began peeling them over the sink.
Tonight they were having “zharyokha,” as her husband called it—fried potatoes with mushrooms, topped with sour cream and sprinkled with dill. What could be tastier after a good day in the forest?
While she worked on the potatoes, cheerful laughter and splashing water echoed from the bathroom. Alina was telling her father about how she and Grandma had baked cottage-cheese pancakes the day before.
Lesha laughed, asked questions, and pretended to be amazed and impressed. A typical family idyll—warm and cozy.
The evening indeed went peacefully and joyfully, just as planned.
Lesha joked, winked at his wife across the table, told their daughter about how they picked mushrooms, and promised to take her to the forest next time.
“Dad, are there wolves there?” Alina asked, curious.
“There are wolves, but they’re more afraid of people than people are of them,” Lesha explained. “They live deep in the wilderness where no one goes. In our forests the worst you might meet is a hedgehog or a squirrel.”
“Do hedgehogs bite?”
“Hedgehogs only bite if you grab them with your hands. If you don’t touch them, they’ll run away on their own.”
“I want to bring a hedgehog home! So it can be friends with Pavlusha!”
“Hedgehogs don’t live in apartments, honey. They need the forest, fresh air, their own food. They get sick in captivity.”
Ksyusha listened to this exchange, smiled when needed, nodded in the right moments.
But her mind was far away.
She never let on that she knew far more about her husband now than he imagined. She played the role of a loving wife, just as he played the role of a faithful family man.
After dinner, Alina helped clear the table, washed her plate and cup, and put her fork and spoon into the dishwasher.
Then the whole family watched a children’s movie on TV about two friends having adventures in the taiga.
Lesha sat in his favorite armchair, Ksyusha settled on the couch, and Alina lay on the rug in front of the screen, crunching an apple.
At half past nine, they sent their daughter to bed. She brushed her teeth, changed into pajamas, and Ksyusha read her a bedtime story about Thumbelina.
When silence finally filled the children’s room, the parents began getting ready for bed as well.
Lesha went to the kitchen to finish his tea and check something, and while he was gone, Ksyusha quietly slipped into the hallway and took her purchase from the top shelf of the wardrobe.
She carefully carried it to the bedroom and hid it under the bed on her side.
Lesha returned from the kitchen a few minutes later, turned off the lights in the corridor and living room, entered the bedroom, and closed the door.
“Good night, my love,” he said, crawling under the blanket.
“Good night, darling,” Ksyusha replied, settling in beside him.
Lesha lay on his back with his hands behind his head and told his wife about his plans for tomorrow. They would need to drive to the dacha, check how things were after the recent rains, maybe pick the last tomatoes and peppers.
Ksyusha listened to his steady voice, feeling the warmth of his body next to her.
Half an hour later, Lesha was already snoring softly. Ksyusha waited a little longer, then silently pulled the package out from under the bed.
Inside were large garden loppers with bright red rubber handles.
The tool was brand new, heavy, with razor-sharp blades—strong enough to cut through a branch as thick as a finger.
Ksyusha carefully slid them under the blanket and positioned them so the cold metal touched the right spot.
The reaction was immediate. Lesha’s eyes flew open, he inhaled sharply and froze as he felt the cold metal against him.
The room was dim, lit only by the faint streetlights outside, but even in that light she could see his face go pale.
“Wh–what are you doing, Ksyush?” he whispered haltingly, afraid to move.
“Shh, darling, don’t worry,” Ksyusha lay beside him, pressed against him, speaking calmly, almost tenderly. “I just want to offer you something.”
“Ksyush, I don’t understand what’s going on…”
She brought her lips close to his ear and said quietly, but very clearly:
“One little snip, and I’ll let you go to your Katya without any scandals, hysterics, or reproaches. Do you want that?”
Lesha lay motionless, and Ksyusha could see the vein at his temple pounding rapidly.
He swallowed with difficulty.
“To hell with that Katya! I’m yours, only yours!” he whispered. “And yes, I understand everything.”
A moment later, Ksyusha pulled the tool out from under the blanket and placed it back under the bed.
She turned onto her other side and said calmly:
“Good night, darling.”
But he didn’t answer. Lesha lay there motionless, fully realizing what had just happened between them.
