Outside Veronica’s modest apartment block, midnight had quietly passed after its dark revelry. She dragged her heavy feet as she inserted the key into the stubborn lock. Even the metal seemed reluctant, resisting entry to this exhausted shadow of a woman. It was not just a matter of feeling “limbless” — that would have been a gentler description. Rather, she perceived herself as a broken machine, every cog worn down, every wire burnt out. Her hunger was sharp, cruel, and nauseating all at once, while the fury inside felt thick and black like tar, flooding her from within.
“How much longer?” her temples seemed to pound. “When will the breaking point arrive? When will I finally collapse?” This haunting question repeated itself nightly. A full year had passed since her life had turned into a living hell behind the sign that read “WineWorld.”
Veronica’s daily grind in the cursed liquor store—an aquarium filled with bottles and human vices—began at eight in the morning and stretched relentlessly until eleven at night. It was a grueling ordeal, completely draining her spirit. The owner, a greedy spider named Arkady Petrovich, had woven a web of surveillance cameras, and his piercing gaze through lenses felt like searing hot irons on the back. Sitting down was a luxury prohibited by heavy fines. The motto branded into every saleswoman’s psyche was clear: “If you’re sitting, you’re slacking off.” By day’s end, her feet burned as if aflame, swollen and throbbing, begging for relief.
The crates were something else—heavy, ringing coffins laden with bottles, which the women were forced to unload themselves. Fifteen minutes for a quick bite, then back to the frontline—the sales counter, where unpredictable customers awaited. Smiling was mandatory: smiling at drunks, rude, tipsy louts, and quarrelsome ladies alike. All while her heart longed to cry from helplessness or scream from rage.
- Veronica’s colleagues regarded her as the epitome of endurance, an iron lady unbroken by hardship.
- Few lasted beyond six months in this place; staff turnover was a flood, escaping this hellish fishing net into the unknown.
- Still, Veronica persisted, driven forward by the most profound reason: her seven-year-old son, Stepan.
Desperately needing money, those filthy notes, tinged with vodka and sweat, were their only thread connecting them to a semblance of normal life. There was nowhere else to turn. The small industrial town, once lively and boisterous, was now quietly dying. Former factories—the lumber mill and the hydrolysis plant—stood like grim monuments to a bygone era, guarded only by ghostly watchmen who kept vigil over dust and memories.
Stepping inside her apartment, Veronica wearily shrugged off her jacket, freezing as muffled voices drifted from the kitchen. Her heart jolted — a familiar anxious flutter, conditioned for constant anticipation of misfortune. Then, a fragment of her morning conversation with her mother surfaced in her mind: “Veronichka, don’t forget, Aunt Irina is visiting today.” Aunt Irina — her mother’s elder sister from Irkutsk, a different, broader life. She hadn’t been around for five years.
The kitchen smelled of freshly brewed tea and homemade pie. Two sisters, both middle-aged with graying hair and crow’s feet, sat wrapped in a warm glow beneath a lampshade. This light fell upon Veronica, illuminating her gaunt, pale face, marked by dark circles under her eyes.
“My dear!” Aunt Irina was the first to rise, her gentle face glowing with kindness and sparkling eyes. “Our beauty, you look utterly worn out, poor girl!”
She embraced her niece, stirring a moment-long rediscovery of long-lost childhood comfort and protection. Veronica was kissed, seated at the table, and urged to eat her fill.
After sipping her tea, Aunt Irina looked at Veronica earnestly, speaking plainly but with familial warmth:
“Verochka, darling, how much longer can this go on? Look at yourself! You’re burning alive in this slavery. Drop everything and move to us. Irkutsk is a big city, with many more opportunities. We’ll find you decent, humane work. And…” — she paused — “life doesn’t end here. You’re only thirty, a young and beautiful woman. Maybe your happiness is still out there. Anything can happen!”
The words fell silently, like stones sinking into a swamp. Inside Veronica, bitterness and tightly packed pain twisted into a solid knot.
“No, Aunt, I’ve had enough,” she exhaled, her voice hoarse and fatigued. “I had two chances to ‘find happiness’. Two loud, bright attempts—both failed. Enough. In two months, when I go on vacation, I promise Stepan and I will come visit you. Just for a week. I’ll take him to the circus, the theater, the amusement park. He’s been dreaming about it so long.”
She kissed her aunt’s cheek, citing overwhelming exhaustion, then retreated to her bedroom. Stepan slept peacefully, his steady breathing the only sound bringing calm. Yet, despite her weariness, Veronica couldn’t find sleep. The visit stirred up forgotten, buried feelings, dredged from the depths of memory.
Her mind became a cruel demon, dragging forth vivid scenes she had desperately tried to erase over the years.
When she was eighteen, with a gold medal in hand and a fierce ambition to become a doctor, she enrolled in the medical college in Irkutsk, staying with Aunt Irina. Studies came easily, fueled by passion for her future profession. One day, on a class trip to the Anatomy Museum at the medical university, surrounded by eternal exhibits, her heart suddenly fluttered with life. She met Him—Artem, a final-year dental student, brimming with charm and confidence. He noticed her—a modest girl with a magnificent chestnut braid and deep, endless sky-blue eyes—and was instantly captivated.
He was flawless: self-assured, brilliantly educated, immaculately dressed, witty and gallant. He seemed like a knight out of a romantic novel, appearing suddenly to whisk her away to a fairy tale. Their courtship lasted just over a month before he promptly introduced her to his parents and proposed. Veronica felt as if she was floating on cloud nine.
Artem’s parents, successful dentists and clinic owners, threw a lavish wedding. Veronica’s side included only her mother, aunt and uncle, their son and his wife, and one college friend who acted as the witness. Veronica’s father had long passed away, and her mother dedicated herself solely to her daughter.
The newlyweds received a luxurious downtown apartment stylishly furnished. Artem graduated with honors and joined the family business, earning more by the day. He upgraded to an expensive foreign car. Their life seemed perfect. Veronica gave birth to Stepan at nineteen, and left college.
Then everything unraveled. Artem began working late, then disappeared overnight, then for days, always returning with ironclad excuses. She believed him desperately, blindly.
One day, while buying water in a small café, Veronica saw him—her husband, her supposed knight—seated with a slender blonde, gazing at her with the same adoration once reserved for Veronica. Frozen, she watched as he leaned forward and kissed the woman’s lips softly and passionately.
The home confrontation was dreadful. He justified rather than apologized.
“Verka, look at me!” he nearly protested. “I’m a successful man! I have everything! You think loyalty exists in our circle? Everyone has mistresses here. Being a faithful husband is ridiculous, outdated! Deal with it. You’re smart.”
So she endured five humiliating years, ashamed to return home as a broken, shamed woman. She waited for the real Artem to reappear, for the mask of a macho to drop.
Yet every endurance has its limit—and so did hers.
She left, packing her son’s and her modest belongings, returning to her mother’s home empty-handed. Their luxurious apartment had legally belonged to her mother-in-law; the car and garage to her father-in-law. Aunt Irina begged her to fight in court, but Veronica was crushed by depression. She knew their superior lawyers would demolish her, leaving her burdened by colossal legal fees. Artem paid child support, but meagerly. His true earnings hid in accounting shadows.
“Is this the end?” her mother asked, gazing at her gaunt, prematurely aged daughter with dark shadows beneath her eyes.
After enrolling Stepan in kindergarten, Veronica started working. At the infamous “WineWorld.”
- Younger heartache lingered; love and passion still pulsed under the surface.
- One year later, she met the second man—Grigory.
- Tall and broad-shouldered with a roguish grin, he ran a small bar called a “café-restaurant,” popular among the local youth.
Naive Veronica believed she had found a true partner. But illusions shattered swiftly. His drunken returns, marked by the scent of cheap perfume and other women, sparked endless fights, tears, broken dishes, a toxic cycle of breaking up and making up lasting two grueling years.
One morning, after yet another late-night escapade, watching Stepan sleep peacefully, she realized the end had come—final and irrevocable.
She left again, disillusioned with life, love, men, and herself. With an emptied, scorched soul, she renounced dating, hope, and passion. Only work, home, her son, and a quiet gray despair remained. Aunt Irina’s talk of moving and renewed happiness painfully stirred barely healed wounds.
Aunt Irina left after making Veronica promise to visit with Stepan in summer. She kept her word. That summer, Veronica, her mother, and Stepan traveled to Irkutsk, where Aunt Irina threw a festive dinner.
The table included Aunt Irina’s son and his wife, and a guest: a short, stocky man about thirty-five with kind but somewhat sad eyes and a prominent bald head. Introduced as Nikolai Petrovich, employed by the city administration and—single.
Veronica quickly realized her aunt intended to play matchmaker. She braced herself defensively. Nikolai proved to be pleasant and courteous, attentive throughout the evening. Yet, to Veronica, he did not inspire. Not her type. Too ordinary, too grounded beside the ghostly figures of dashing Artem and rugged Grigory.
He shyly invited her to a café the next day. Not wanting to be rude, she reluctantly accepted.
The meeting went surprisingly well. His modest yet beautiful bouquet of irises—her favorite—was a thoughtful touch. He was gentlemanly, a good listener, witty without malice, unpretentious, genuine.
Walking her home, Nikolai paused, looked deeply into her eyes, and softly, clearly said:
“Veronika, our acquaintance is brief. Yet, I’ve met many people and see that you are an extraordinary, strong, and wonderful woman. I like you very much. I can’t promise storms or passions, but I am ready to love you and your son seriously and long-term. Think it over. Give me a chance.”
He gave her three days to decide. Walking home, she pondered, “I’ve already been married for passionate love. It ended badly. For infatuation, too. Maybe it’s time for something different—something calm, reasonable.”
She agreed. A month later, they had a modest wedding with close family. Veronica and Stepan moved into Nikolai’s cozy three-room apartment, scented with books and coffee.
Then began a remarkable transformation. Though outwardly calm and even somewhat phlegmatic, Nikolai possessed formidable willpower and organizing skill. First, he found Artem and spoke man to man—not with threats or demands, but persuasion. He successfully obtained official permission to adopt Stepan.
“Now we are one family. Everyone should share the same last name,” he said softly, yet firmly.
Rather than treating her like a lavish plaything, Nikolai did more. He prepared all the paperwork, leased a small but inviting space in a good district, stocked it with fashionable, quality women’s clothing. Veronica instantly became the owner and sole shop assistant of a tiny boutique.
Key Insight: “A woman must be independent, Verochka,” he explained. “Not just ‘with a husband’, but self-sufficient. That brings confidence, respect, and a different kind of happiness—true happiness.”
Indeed, he was right. Within a year and a half, Veronica transformed from a timid, exhausted woman into a new person: upright posture, assured gaze, sharp business suits, skillfully negotiating with suppliers. Her business expanded—she bought the shop premises, then opened two more outlets.
Nikolai proved more than kind—he became her rock, a quiet harbor and reliable partner. Proud rather than jealous of her success, he bonded well with Stepan, helped with homework, attended parent meetings. Three years later, their daughter Masha was born.
Together now for seven years, they share a stable, peaceful, and complete happiness. Free from storms, scandals, suspicion, and betrayal. Their relationship is built on mutual respect, support, and deep, hard-earned gratitude.
Veronica loves her husband—not with fiery passion, but with a profound, calm, and genuine affection stronger than any temporary flame. She has embraced a simple yet profound truth: happiness is not a dazzling flash that blinds you and leaves ashes behind. It is a steady, warm, tender sun shining every day—like a tranquil refuge after a long, terrifying voyage through tempestuous seas. And it is truly worth it.
This story of struggle, resilience, and ultimate peace reveals the strength found in sincere love and independence, making it a beacon of hope for those longing for solace and renewal in life’s turbulent journey.