I had been contemplating for quite some time about the ideal restaurant where we could celebrate our second wedding anniversary. I was looking for more than just a lovely venue with great food; I wanted a place where every detail would enhance the atmosphere of the evening.
Ultimately, I chose “Firebird,” a new establishment located in a historic mansion featuring stained glass windows and elegant chandeliers.
When I shared pictures of the interior with Anton, he grimaced.
“Why such extravagance? We could simply have a quiet dinner somewhere. Who needs this cheap ostentation?”
However, I stood my ground. I invited sixty guests, arranged for musicians and a host. After a horrifying car accident six months prior, I craved a celebration—something genuine, vibrant, and memorable.
The preparations took several weeks.
I double-checked everything: the hall’s décor, the menu, the evening’s schedule, and gifts for the guests. I wanted it to be flawless.
Perhaps because this was the first significant celebration since my return from the hospital. Or perhaps I just wanted this anniversary to be unforgettable in every way, even in the decor.
I adjusted the folds of my deep violet dress and glanced at the clock. Guests were expected to start arriving any minute. Anton was standing by the window, gazing absentmindedly outside. In the reflection of the glass, I noticed the tension in his face.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked as I approached him.
“Oh just…” he shrugged. “I simply don’t enjoy events like this. So much fuss and unnecessary movement! And for what? For showy happiness!”
I remained silent. Over two years of marriage had taught me not to react to his comments, especially today! The day I Had planned for months.
***
My parents were the first to arrive. Dad looked particularly stylish and sophisticated as always. Mom wore her new dress in a shade of dusty rose that complemented her complexion beautifully. As she entered, she rushed towards me and hugged me tightly:
“I am so glad you are with us, dear. I can’t take my eyes off of you! After that accident, I thought I would go crazy…”
“Mom, please don’t start,” I gently interrupted her. “Only good things today. Remember, we agreed!”
Following them came colleagues from my father’s company where Anton and I had worked, along with friends and relatives. I greeted everyone with a smile, yet I kept an eye on my husband. He seemed rather distant, occasionally sipping from his whiskey glass. This was unusual; typically, he didn’t drink even on big occasions.
Irina Vladimirovna, our chief accountant, approached to say hello. I noticed she paled slightly when I turned to her, perhaps recalling her visits to me in the hospital when I was attached to tubes and sensors, with doctors offering little reassurance…
“Karina, you simply glow,” she said with a strained smile. “You look phenomenal! Especially considering you just recently returned from the brink of death!”
“Thank you! You look wonderful as well. Don’t doubt it!”
Something in her gaze struck me as odd, but I chose to disregard it, at least for now.
The celebration commenced.
Toasts were raised, music played, and guests danced. From the outside, everything seemed perfect. Yet, I could feel the tension mounting.
Anton kept his distance, occasionally engaging in conversations with colleagues. He would glance oddly at Irina Vladimirovna from time to time, while she pointedly pretended not to see him.
I approached my husband with a smile and asked:
“Care to dance? It is our celebration after all.”
“Not right now,” he brushed me off. “I have a bit of a headache.”
“You seem unusually distant today…”
“I’m just tired. You know I don’t like large gatherings, so stop inventing something unnecessary!”
***
The evening gained momentum. The emcee—a young man in a stylish suit—skillfully orchestrated the mood of the guests.
I watched everything unfold, attempting not to reveal my inner turmoil. Only I knew how special this celebration was meant to be. I just needed a little more patience.
Anton continued to keep aloof, occasionally forcing a smile at acquaintances. I noticed his brief glances towards Irina Vladimirovna, yet I feigned to be engrossed in the festivities. Each glance between them tightened something painful inside me, but I kept smiling and accepting congratulations.
“Karina, we are so glad you are better!” chirped the wife of my father’s deputy. “It was such an awful time when we heard about the accident.”
“Yes, those were frightening days,” her friend nodded. “But that is all in the past now, thank God!”
I nodded in gratitude while my thoughts drifted back to those hospital days. Such a strange time… like in a fog. Fragments of memories, conversations, footsteps in the ward…
“Darling, everything is just wonderful!” Mom hugged me around the shoulders, pulling me from my reverie. “Such a beautiful celebration! You look magical today!”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Just…” she hesitated. “Anton seems a bit tense. Is everything alright?”
“Of course,” I managed a faint smile. “He just doesn’t enjoy large gatherings.”
At that moment, Dad approached and gently embraced Mom:
“What are you whispering about?”
“Oh, just feminine chatter,” I replied dismissively.
“Sweetheart! I am so proud of you. You handled everything so well… You are a true fighter!”
I embraced Dad tightly, hiding my face in his shoulder. He didn’t know half of what I had faced, and I hoped he would never find out.
The slow music began to play: a song we had danced to at our wedding as newlyweds.
I quickly approached Anton:
“Shall we dance? Just like two years ago?”
He flinched.
“Karina, I told you I don’t want to dance. Are you messing with me?”
“But why?” I looked intently into his eyes. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. Just leave me alone!”
His abrupt rudeness left me frozen.
In a few moments, I noticed Irina Vladimirovna hastily leaving the hall, followed closely by Anton. Waiting for the right moment, I followed them.
They stood in an empty corridor, engaged in a tense conversation. Both fell silent upon my arrival.
“What is going on here?” I asked calmly.
“Nothing special,” she tried to smile. “We were discussing work matters.”
“On our anniversary?”
“Karina, stop it!” Anton snapped unhappily.
“Me? Stop? You’ve been acting off all evening. I don’t understand your behavior at all!”
We returned to the hall. The music was blasting, and guests continued to dance. Dad was giving another toast. Irina Vladimirovna was carefully avoiding my gaze, but I saw her hands trembling as she raised her glass to her lips.
“Anton, talk to me,” I approached him once more. “Do you not want to explain what is happening?”
“I don’t want to! Enough!” he raised his voice. “How long will this go on?”
“But I genuinely want to understand…”
“Leave me be!” He turned sharply towards me.
At that moment, the music abruptly ceased. A hush fell over the hall. In that silence, his words sounded like a verdict:
“I’ve been sick of you since our wedding night! You disgust me! Stay away from me!”
***
Anton’s words struck me like a whip across the face. For a brief moment, the world swayed before my eyes, and a ringing filled my ears. It felt as though time had paused, and all stood frozen in a silent tableau: shocked guests, a pale Irina Vladimirovna, and a triumphant Anton.
I exhaled slowly. Here it was! The moment my father and I had awaited. Oddly enough, instead of pain, I felt relief. It was as if the heavy burden I had been carrying for months was finally beginning to lift from my shoulders. A slight smirk crossed my lips as I subtly nodded at the emcee.
The lights in the hall dimmed. On the large screen set up for a celebratory presentation, an image flickered to life.
A black-and-white hospital ward, dim light from life support equipment. There I lay, tangled in wires and tubes, unconscious on a bed. The date in the corner of the screen was three months ago.
I recalled how my father had shown me this footage for the first time. It was a week after I returned home from the hospital. He hesitated, searching for the right moment.
“I’m sorry, daughter, but I had to see how you were being cared for,” he said back then as he turned on the video.
The door to the ward opened on-screen. Two figures entered, their silhouettes clearly visible in the dimness. Anton and Irina Vladimirovna. They crept in like thieves, assuming no one could see them.
“Keep it down,” the woman whispered. “What if she wakes up…”
“She won’t wake up,” my husband’s voice sounded dull and almost satisfied. “The doctors said her chances are slim to none.”
In the hall, a silence hung so thick you could hear a fly buzzing. I watched the faces of the guests freeze, their widened eyes filled with horror. I could see Anton’s knuckles turning white as he gripped the chair back.
The video continued. The man drew Irina closer and kissed her. Passionately, hungrily, as if forgetting where they were. Right beside the bed of his wife, whom he deemed would never wake up.
“Everything fell into place perfectly,” he whispered between kisses. “Now we can be together. We just have to wait…”
“Anton, wait,” Irina gently pulled away from him. “What if your wife survives?”
“She won’t survive. In this situation, the chances are almost nonexistent. It all happened just as it was meant to. You know I always think ahead.”
The recording continued with discussions of their plans, their future, how they would handle my stake in the company, and how long their affair had been ongoing, which had apparently started long before our wedding. They discussed how skilfully they had pretended all this time.
Each frame felt like a nail in the coffin of their future.
I pressed the remote’s button. The image froze on an especially telling frame: them together by my bed, in an emotional embrace, while behind them a monitor displayed my vital signs.
The hall remained utterly silent.
***
My mother’s scream shattered the silence:
“My God… How could you?!”
She rushed towards Anton in rage, but Dad held her back.
Irina Vladimirovna attempted to sneak out, but the security my father had strategically placed blocked her way.
A commotion arose in the hall: guests began to rise from their seats, some point at the screen, where the last frame still hung.
“This… this isn’t what you think,” Anton tried to regain his composure, although I could see his fingers trembled. “Karina, you’ve misunderstood everything. We were just…”
“Just what?” I slowly approached my husband, feeling each step land heavily in the hushed hall. “Just discussing plans for my inheritance while I was dying? Just kissing while I fought for my life?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my father’s deputy shaking his head, whispering something to his wife. The head of the legal department hastily typed something into his phone. Someone among the guests was already openly recording the scene.
“You know,” I continued, relishing the unfolding situation, “initially, I thought this was merely infidelity. Despicable, low, but… ordinary. Then I started recalling the peculiar details leading up to the accident. Your insistence on taking that specific route. Your call just a minute before the brakes failed…”
I saw Irina Vladimirovna flinch at these words. I noticed Anton’s jaw clench tightly. I observed my parents exchanging worried glances.
“You can’t accuse me! You have no evidence!”
“Not yet,” I smiled indifferently. “But tomorrow morning, all the materials, including this video, will be handed over to the prosecution. Let the investigators determine whether this was a coincidence or a premeditated attempt on my life.”
“Karina,” the chief accountant stepped forward, nervously fiddling with her pearl necklace, “we can discuss this calmly, without this… spectacle.”
“Spectacle?” I laughed loudly. “Oh yes, you both are experts in theatrics. For two months, I watched your play. Every day, every minute. I saw how, Irina, you ‘miraculously’ stayed late in his office. How you exchanged glances in meetings. How you concocted reasons for business trips. Now it’s my turn.”
Dad approached me and placed a hand on my shoulder. I felt it tremble slightly from barely restrained fury:
“Daughter, should we call the police right now?”
“No need, Dad. Let them go. Tomorrow they’ll have enough on their minds.”
Anton shot Irina a casual glance and hissed with hatred:
“You… you staged everything! You deliberately orchestrated this worthless evening to create a showy scandal!”
“Yes, I staged it. I played by your rules. Just as you staged our wedding while already having an affair with her. Just as you married me purely to secure a share of the company. Just as you arranged…”
I couldn’t finish. Anton abruptly turned and strode toward the exit, with Irina Vladimirovna stumbling after him in her high heels.
“You will regret this!” he shouted over his shoulder.
“No,” I quietly replied. “You will regret much.”
When the door closed behind them, silence enveloped the hall. Mom quietly wept on Dad’s shoulder. Guests exchanged glances, unsure how to react. Some hastily began to gather their belongings, while others remained frozen in place, afraid to move.
I raised my glass and solemnly said:
“I apologize for ruining the celebration. But I had to do this. I needed to reveal the truth. And now… now let the competent authorities handle it.”
***
… Three months passed.
I sat in the investigator’s office, watching as he sorted through paperwork. Another refusal to initiate a criminal case. The wording was always different; the essence was the same: insufficient evidence.
“You see,” the investigator removed his glasses and wearily rubbed his nose, “we have explored all avenues. We checked the auto service where your husband repaired the car a week before the accident. Interviewed the mechanics. Reviewed all the security footage. But…”
he shrugged, “time has slipped away. The examination cannot definitively establish whether there was intent behind the brake failure.”
I nodded. It was to be expected. Too much time had passed.
“We’ve done everything possible. It’s time to close this case. Forever. Unfortunately!”
However, other consequences from that evening proved more tangible.
The very next day, my father convened an extraordinary board meeting. Anton and Irina were dismissed for immoral conduct incompatible with their positions. My father utilized all his connections: the doors of major companies in the city were firmly closed to them.
I remember Anton coming to my house a week after his dismissal, pleading:
“Karina, let’s talk! You can’t just erase everything like this…”
“I can,” I didn’t even invite him inside. “Divorce papers are already with the lawyer. They will be sent to you.”
“But how could you… We’ve been together for so many years…”
“Indeed. For so many years, you played your role flawlessly. But the play is over, Anton. The curtain falls.”
I slammed the door loudly in his face, cutting off his words. At that moment, I realized that I felt no pain or hatred, only exhaustion and a desire to quickly turn this page of my life.
Irina Vladimirovna was the first to disappear from the city. I heard she went to relatives in Novosibirsk.
Anton lasted longer, trying to find work and knocking on various doors. But when all his attempts ended in failure, he left as well. Where to? I didn’t concern myself with that.
“Sweetheart,” my father embraced me around the shoulders when I returned from the prosecutor’s office, “don’t worry. The main thing is that we know the truth. And they have received their due.”
“You know, Dad, I suddenly realized that I don’t regret that evening at all. Yes, it hurt. Yes, it was terrifying. But it’s better to face the bitter truth than to live in a sweet lie.”
Mom set the table and brewed my favorite tea. We sat together as we used to. I gradually started to return to life.
In a week, the first court session for the divorce process was scheduled. Anton called, pleading not to take it to court, promising to settle everything amicably. But I wanted to go by the book. I wanted to put a definitive end to our tale.
Just yesterday, after a long time, I smiled at my reflection in the mirror. I saw not pain or weariness, but hope. Hope for a new beginning.