Finishing the salmon quiches her mother had made, her husband announced — starting tomorrow, we’re having separate budgets.
Arseny took the last quiche from the plate without even lifting his eyes from his phone. He chewed slowly, savoring it — the way people chew only what they truly enjoy. Irina watched him lick his fingers, gathering the crumbs of puff pastry from his fingertips. Her mother, Lidia Pavlovna, had brought those quiches in the morning — still warm, smelling of butter and rosemary. Six pieces. He had already eaten four during the day; now he was finishing the fifth. Irina had managed to take only one bite of her own.
“Starting tomorrow, you’re paying your share,” he said without looking away from the screen. “Or find a way to cover your leisure expenses yourself.”
Irina froze with her fork in hand. Two-year-old Lev was playing with his building blocks nearby, banging the pieces against the parquet floor.
“What did you just say?”
“Separate budgets. It’s normal practice. I pay for the apartment, you pay for your things. Phone, clothes, cosmetics. Everything fair.”
He placed his phone face down on the table and finally looked at her. His expression was calm, even condescending.
“Arseny, I’m on maternity leave. Lev is two. I stay home with the child.”
“You’re home all day — and what do you even do? You could easily find remote work. You have an architecture degree. Or did you think I’d support you forever?”
Irina slowly put down the fork. The quiche she had started to eat turned into a lump in her throat. Arseny stood up, pushed the chair back — sharply, scraping metal across the floor. He took his empty plate, didn’t even wash it, just put it in the sink and went to his room. He closed the door quietly, but Irina heard the click of the lock.
The first few days she walked around in a daze. She checked her phone — she had almost no money left, enough for a week if she was careful. Arseny now stayed silent at breakfast, left early, came home late. Sometimes she heard him talking on the phone in a low voice in the hallway. Once Irina heard a woman’s laughter coming from the speaker — light, ringing. She didn’t ask. She just remembered.
A week later she registered on a freelance platform. Interior design, visualization — work she could do with her eyes closed. Her first order came through her mother.
“My friend is renovating her place. Can you help with the layout?”
They paid little, but it was her money. Irina looked at the numbers on the screen and felt something inside her harden, chill, curl into a fist.
After a month, she had more orders. She worked at night when Lev slept. Arseny still didn’t notice — he came home, had dinner in his room, sometimes disappeared on weekends God knows where. Said he had “meetings with colleagues” and avoided her eyes.
And then she saw his tablet.
It was lying on the table, the screen still on. Arseny had gone to shower, and Irina was just passing by. She glanced at it. And stopped.
Messages. With someone named Stella.
“You understand this is temporary, right? I can’t leave yet, but I already found a studio. For us.”
Irina reached for the tablet. The password was four digits. She tried their wedding date. Wrong. Lev’s birthday. Wrong again. Last attempt — the day they moved into this apartment. The screen unlocked.
She scrolled through the messages, her fingers moving quickly, mechanically. The water was still running in the shower. Receipts for hotels. Gifts. Restaurant bookings. And then:
“She’s a non-liquid asset, Arseny. You need to write her off. Just do it properly, legally.”
Irina took screenshots. Many. Everything. The messages, the photos, the receipts — all the things he claimed he didn’t have money for when she asked to buy Lev vitamins. She put the tablet back and went to the kitchen. Sat at the table. Her hands didn’t tremble. Inside she felt empty and cold, like an unfinished building.
Arseny returned from a business trip on Friday evening. Dropped his bag in the hallway, came into the kitchen. Irina had already set the table — eggs, toast, coffee. Perfect, just like before.
“Why are you being so hospitable?” he asked with a smirk, sitting down. “Or are you completely out of money?”
“I’m doing fine. Sit.”
He picked up his fork. Irina took a thin folder from the drawer and placed it in front of him.
“What’s this?”
“The cost estimate for the project ‘Division of Assets.’ An architectural approach — you like everything calculated, don’t you?”
Arseny opened the folder. Flipped through the first page. His face went pale, then flushed.
“Where did you get this?”
“It doesn’t matter where. What matters is what happens next. You have two options. First — you move out today, leave the apartment to me and Lev, and pay child support appropriate for an IT project manager. Second — I send a copy of this estimate to your HR director. Along with the hotel receipts during work hours and the use of your corporate card for personal expenses. What do you think they call that in your bank?…”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“No. I just did the calculations. You taught me to count, remember? Separate budgets — your idea.”
Arseny stood up so abruptly the chair fell over. He grabbed the folder, crushing it in his hands.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would. And one more thing. Say hello to Stella. Ask if she knows how to make salmon quiches. Or are you planning to feed her my mother’s baking too?”
He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. Then slowly unclenched his fingers and threw the folder onto the table.
“I’ll come for my things tomorrow.”
“Today. Or I hit ‘send’ right now.”
He left half an hour later. Slammed the door so hard Lev woke up and cried. Irina picked up her son, held him close, and stood by the window watching Arseny load his bags into the car. Inside she felt no anger and no triumph. Only exhaustion and a strange relief — like after finishing a difficult project.
The divorce went quickly. Arseny didn’t resist; he was afraid of publicity. Child support arrived on time — he valued his position far too much to risk it. Irina got the apartment and focused on her work.
Orders kept coming. Within a year she opened her own studio — small, just three people, but hers. Clients found her through recommendations. Lev went to kindergarten, then to school. Life rebuilt itself — without inspections, without control, without the question, “And what did you spend this on?”
She met Damir at a site three years later. A structural engineer, tall, soft-spoken, with a welding scar on his arm. He was checking the load-bearing walls in a house she was designing.
“You made a mistake here,” he pointed to the drawing. “This wall is load-bearing. You can’t remove it.”
Irina looked, recalculated, nodded.
“You’re right.”
They had coffee after work. Then again. Damir didn’t ask about her past, didn’t lecture her. He just showed up. He brought Lev an engineering construction set with bolts and gears. The boy adored him within an evening.
They worked together — he built, she designed. No calculations about who invested more. Just fifty-fifty. In everything.
Irina ran into Arseny by chance five years later, near a shopping center. He was walking alone, hunched, wearing a worn-out jacket. He saw her and froze.
“Irina.”
“Arseny.”
The silence stretched — awkward, heavy. He spoke first.
“How are you?”
“Good. The studio is expanding, I hired two more employees. Lev is in third grade, into robotics now. And you?”
“Work. I’m renting an apartment now.”
“And Stella?”
His face twitched, as if from a blow.
“She left a year ago. Said I nitpicked her expenses too much. Funny, isn’t it?”
Irina looked at him — at the man who once demanded receipts for baby food while spending money on his mistress. And she felt nothing. No anger, no pity. Just emptiness.
“Funny. Good luck to you.”
She walked to the car, where Damir was waiting with bags of groceries. They were going out of town, to the house he was building and she was designing. Their house — no separate budgets, no spreadsheets.
“Who was that?” Damir asked when she got in.
“No one. Just my ex.”
Her phone vibrated — a message from her mother: “Honey, I baked salmon quiches. I’ll bring them tomorrow.”
Irina smiled and typed back, “No need, Mom. I learned how to make them myself. Mine are even better.”
Damir laughed, glancing at her screen over her shoulder.
“Liar. You burned the dough yesterday.”
“That’s okay, I’ll learn. I have time now.”
He took her hand — warm, rough from work — and kissed her knuckles. Snow was falling outside. Lev was chattering from the back seat about his school robot. Damir drove unhurriedly.
And Irina looked ahead and thought that separate budgets weren’t about money at all. They were about how you divide your life. Together, or each on their own.
She chose together. And she never regretted it.
