Viktor refused to pay for his wife’s surgery and instead found her a burial plot, then left for Paris with another woman. But upon his return…
Viktor stood by the window of the hospital room, watching the gray October rain. The doctor had just left, taking with him a heavy silence.
“Did you hear what he said?” Anna’s voice was weak, almost a whisper. “The surgery is expensive. Very expensive.”
“I heard,” Viktor didn’t turn around.
“How much have we saved for the apartment?”
“Enough for the down payment. Almost three million.”
Anna closed her eyes. Twenty-two years of marriage, twenty-two years of saving on everything. She sewed her own dresses, he drove an old car. Their daughter Katya grew up, got married, moved to another city. And all those years they saved for a place of their own, for an apartment where they could grow old together.
“The surgery costs two and a half,” she said. “Almost all our money.”
“I know.”
“And what if it doesn’t help?”
Viktor finally turned to her. In his eyes she didn’t see what she was searching for. She didn’t see determination, or the willingness to risk everything. Instead there was something else—fatigue, irritation, maybe even relief.
“The doctor said fifty-fifty,” he said slowly. “Half a chance. And if it doesn’t help, we’ll be left with nothing. No money, no apartment. And without you.”
Anna felt something inside her break. Not from fear of dying. From understanding.
“You don’t want to risk the money,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Anya, be realistic. You’re fifty-one. You have stage four cancer. Even after the surgery, the doctors give you at most two years. At most! And most likely—less. And those two years you’ll spend in hospitals, on chemo, in pain. Is it worth it?”
“For you—it’s not worth it,” she turned toward the wall.
“That’s not what I mean. I’m thinking of you. Why suffer? There’s palliative care, painkillers…”
“You’ve already made your decision.”
Viktor came closer but didn’t touch her.
“I’ve found a good plot. At the Northern Cemetery, under the birch trees. A quiet place. I’ll pay for everything properly, I’ll put up whatever monument you want. Marble. With your photograph—when you were still young, beautiful.”
Anna laughed, and her laughter was scarier than tears.
“You’ve already picked out a place for me at the cemetery. While I’m still alive.”
“Don’t say it like that. I just want you not to worry. To know you’ll be taken care of.”
“I’ll be taken care of when I die. But while I’m alive—you want to save the money for the apartment.”
“For our apartment! Where I’ll live! I still have years ahead of me, Anya. I’m fifty-four. What am I supposed to do without housing, without money?”
She closed her eyes. There was no point in talking anymore.
Katya arrived two days later. Tall, beautiful, looking just like her mother when she was young. She sat down beside the hospital bed and took Anna’s hand.
“Mom, I found out everything. I can pay for the surgery. I have savings.”
“No,” Anna shook her head. “That’s your money. You need to raise your children. Your father already explained to me that the surgery most likely won’t help.”
“Mom!”
“He’s right, Katya dear. Why waste the money? Better save it for the grandchildren’s education.”
Katya burst into tears, pressing her face into her mother’s hand. Anna stroked her head and thought about how she was protecting her daughter from the truth—protecting her from knowing that her father refused to save his wife in order to keep the money for an apartment.
Viktor appeared in the evening. He brought fruit Anna couldn’t eat.
“I’m leaving tomorrow for a week,” he said without meeting her eyes. “A business trip. To Paris.”
“To Paris?” Anna even lifted herself on the pillow. “What business trip? You’ve never gone to Paris for work.”
“First time. Important negotiations. I couldn’t refuse.”
“Couldn’t refuse,” she repeated. “I’m dying, and you can’t refuse a trip to Paris.”
“You’re not dying! The doctors said you still have three or four months, maybe even half a year. I can’t just drop everything. I have work, obligations.”
“I see. Go. Go to your Paris.”
He left quickly, without even kissing her goodbye.
Her roommate, an elderly woman with kidney disease, quietly said:
“He won’t be going alone.”
“What?”
“Your husband. I saw him talking in the hallway with a woman. Young, pretty. Maybe a secretary from their company. They were hugging.”
Anna closed her eyes. That was it. The real reason. Not even the money—or not only the money. He had someone else. Young, healthy. And he already saw his new life. In a new apartment, paid for with the money he’d saved with Anna. With a new woman.
And his wife—just a burden to be rid of. Not killed, of course. Just left for nature to take its course.
The week crawled by painfully. Viktor called once a day, briefly, in passing. He talked about the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, French cuisine. His voice sounded guilty, but happy.
Anna grew weaker. The pain worsened, and the painkillers helped less and less. But she held on. She was waiting.
Katya came every day after work, sat beside her, read aloud. She didn’t mention her father. Maybe she, too, understood something.
On the seventh day, Marina appeared—Viktor’s ex-wife from his university years. They hadn’t seen each other in twenty years.
“Anya, I heard by chance that you’re in the hospital,” she sat on the visitors’ chair, elegant, well-groomed. “I wanted to stop by. How are you?”
“Dying,” Anna answered plainly. “And you?”
“I…” Marina hesitated. “Listen, I feel awkward, but I have to tell you. I was seeing my sister off at the airport and saw Vitia there… He said he was going to Paris.”
“He’s there now on a business trip.”
“He wasn’t alone. There was a woman with him. Young, about thirty. They stood together, she was holding him. They… they behaved like a couple.”
Anna nodded.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“I suspected. Thank you for coming. Thank you for telling me the truth.”
Marina squeezed her hand.
“If you need money for treatment…”
“I don’t. It’s too late.”
After Marina left, Anna lay for a long time, staring at the ceiling. Inside, there was neither pain nor resentment. Only a strange clarity. And resolve.
Viktor returned tanned, rested. He brought perfume Anna would never wear again.
“How are you?” he asked cheerfully, avoiding her gaze.
“Good. I’ve decided.”
“Decided what?”
“I want to die at home. Not in the hospital. Discharge me. Take me home.”
Viktor clearly hadn’t expected that.
“Home? But there’s no equipment there, no doctors…”
“I don’t need doctors. I need my home. My bed. My walls. I want to die where I lived most of my life.”
“All right,” he was clearly relieved that she wasn’t making a scene or asking about Paris. “I’ll arrange everything.”
They had rented a one-room apartment on the outskirts for twenty-two years. Small, old, but it was their home. Viktor helped Anna onto the sofa-bed, brought her water…
“Do you need anything?”
“No. Go to work. Don’t waste your vacation on me.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Katya will come in the evening. And during the day I’ll lie down, sleep a bit.”
He left with obvious relief.
Anna waited until the door clicked shut behind him, then got up. She moved slowly, through pain, but with purpose. She sat down at the old computer Katya had set up for them several years earlier.
She opened Viktor’s email. He had never changed the password—the date of their wedding. The irony.
The letters were there. All of them. The correspondence with Lyuda, the secretary from the office. Emails that had started half a year ago, long before Anna’s diagnosis. Plans for the future. Lyuda wrote: “When she finally dies, we’ll be able to get married. Imagine—a new apartment, a new life!”
Viktor replied: “Soon, darling. The doctors give her at most six months. I’m not going to pay for the surgery—why waste our money? We just need to wait.”
Anna printed all the emails. Put them into an envelope.
Then she opened the banking app. She still had access to their joint account—Viktor no longer thought she could use it. All the money, all their savings. Two million eight hundred thousand rubles.
She transferred it to Katya’s account. Every last kopeck. In the payment memo she wrote: “For the grandchildren’s education. From Mom, with love.”
After that, she wrote a will by hand. She left Katya everything she had—old jewelry, books, her share of the apartment, if it could ever be privatized.
And she wrote a letter. Long, honest.
“Katya, my dear girl.
By the time you read this, I will already be gone. Forgive me for not telling you the truth earlier. I didn’t want you to live with the knowledge of who your father really is.
He refused to pay for my surgery. Not because it was useless—the doctors gave me a fifty percent chance. But because he didn’t want to spend money on a dying wife. He was saving that money for a new life. With a new woman.
In the envelope is their correspondence. I don’t recommend reading it, but if you want to know the truth—it’s there.
I transferred all the money to your account. This is our money—yours and mine. I earned it for twenty-two years. He and his lover will not get it.
Don’t judge him too harshly. People are weak. But don’t forgive too easily either. Some things are unforgivable.
Live happily, my dear. Love your children. Remember me sometimes.
Your mom.”
She sealed the letter, placed it on the table in a visible spot, and wrote: “For Katya. Urgent.”
Then she lay down on the sofa and closed her eyes. She had no strength left.
Viktor came home from work in high spirits. Lyuda had promised to cook dinner that evening at her rented apartment. He just needed to make sure Anna was all right.
He entered the room and immediately sensed something was wrong. Too quiet. Too still.
“Anya?”
He stepped closer. Her face was calm, almost peaceful. She was barely breathing.
“Anya!” he shook her shoulder.
She opened her eyes and looked at him for a long moment.
“You came,” she whispered.
“What happened? Are you feeling worse?”
“Everything is fine, Vitia. Everything is very fine. Look on the table. The letter. For Katya.”
“What letter?” he turned, saw the envelope. “Why are you writing letters? You’re still…”
“Check the bank. Our account,” her voice was fading. “Look.”
Viktor took out his phone, opened the app. At first he didn’t understand. Then it felt as if the floor dropped beneath him.
“Where’s the money?! Where is our money?!”
Anna smiled.
“Our money? Mine, Vitia. I earned it for twenty-two years. And I have disposed of it.”
“What have you done?!” he grabbed her by the shoulders. “You sent it to Katya?! All of it?!”
“All of it. To the last kopeck. For the grandchildren. For their education. Not for your mistress. Not for your new apartment. Not for your new life without me.”
“You… you knew?”
“I knew,” she coughed. “Marina saw you in Paris. And I read your emails. All of them. They’re in the envelope too. For Katya. Let her know who her father is.”
Viktor sank into a chair, white as chalk.
“You had no right! It was joint money!”
“Did you have the right not to pay for my surgery? To choose my burial plot while I was alive? To go to Paris with your lover while I was dying?”
“I… I was going to tell you. After…”
“After my death? How noble.”
She closed her eyes. Her breathing grew shallower.
“Anya,” his voice cracked. “Anya, forgive me. I was weak. I got scared. Scared of growing old alone, without money, without a future. You have to understand…”
“I understood,” she whispered. “I understood everything. And I acted accordingly.”
“Return the money. Please. We can start over. I’ll leave Lyuda. I’ll pay for your surgery. Just return the money!”
But Anna no longer responded. She left quietly, just as she had lived—without causing trouble, without demanding attention.
Viktor sat beside her, holding her cooling hand, and cried. But the tears weren’t for her. They were for the money. For the ruined plans. For the explanations he would now have to give Lyuda.
Katya flew in the next day. She read the letter, read the correspondence between her father and his lover. Her face remained like stone.
“I’ll organize the funeral myself,” she told her father. “You don’t need to come.”
“Katya, let me explain…”
“Explain to your Lyuda why you no longer have money for an apartment. Mom left you exactly what you deserved. Nothing.”
“She had no right! I can contest the transfer! Prove she was mentally unstable!”
“Try,” Katya looked at him with such contempt that he stepped back. “Try proving Mom was mentally unstable. Then I’ll show the court your correspondence. I’ll tell everyone how you refused to pay for the surgery. I’ll tell everyone who you really are. Is that what you want?”
Viktor said nothing.
“That’s what I thought. Get out of this apartment. Today. I don’t want to see you here.”
They buried Anna on a cold October day. Viktor stood at a distance, not daring to come closer. Lyuda didn’t come—when she learned about the money, she quickly found herself another, more promising man.
There was no marble monument he had promised her. Just a simple headstone with her name, dates, and a photo—young Anna, beautiful, with happy eyes.
Katya planted a bush of white roses beside it.
“Mom loved roses,” she said without looking at her father.
Viktor wanted to say something. Explain. Ask for forgiveness. But the words stuck in his throat.
He walked away alone, under the autumn rain, to a rented apartment on the outskirts—without money, without his wife, without his daughter, without a future.
And on the cemetery under the birch trees, the white rose petals fell like snow, and it seemed as if Anna were forgiving the world for everything it had done to her.
But him—she did not forgive.
