“I Don’t Love You Anymore!” said her husband. He never expected Liza to pack his suitcase faster than he could finish the sentence.
Liza was standing at the stove, stirring the sauce, when Gleb said it. He didn’t shout, didn’t blurt it out in anger — he simply said it while looking somewhere toward the refrigerator.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
At first, she did not even turn around. The spoon froze above the pot. Then she carefully placed it on the spoon rest, wiped her hands on a towel, and only then looked at him. Gleb stood in the doorway, arms at his sides, like a schoolboy in front of the principal. He was clearly waiting for something: tears, screams, maybe dishes smashing.
“Fine,” Liza said.
Gleb blinked. The expression on his face slowly changed — from defensive readiness to confusion.
Liza walked past him into the bedroom, opened the wardrobe, and took out his travel bag.
Suitcases and travel bags
The very same blue one they had bought before their first vacation together. She began folding his things into it — shirts, trousers, socks. Her movements were precise, mechanical. Gleb stood in the doorway and watched as his life was packed into a bag.
“What are you doing?”
“What needs to be done. You don’t love me anymore, so there’s no reason for you to stay.”
He wanted to object, but she was already zipping the bag shut. She placed it by the door and opened the door wide. Outside, a drizzle was falling. For the first time in twelve years, Liza did not ask whether he had taken an umbrella.
“Wait, I didn’t think you would…” “What did you think?” she looked straight at him. “That I would beg? Cling to you? Twelve years, Gleb. For twelve years, I adjusted to your schedule, your tastes, your moods. You stopped loving me — that is your right. My right is to let you go.”
He picked up the bag in silence and left. The door closed quietly, almost soundlessly.
For the first three days, Liza walked around the apartment without knowing what to do with the silence. She opened the refrigerator — there was his favorite yogurt, the sausage she hated, blue cheese. The smell of that cheese had always made her nauseous.
Liza took a bag and threw everything away. Then she took her sewing machine out of the storage closet — a gift from her mother for her twentieth birthday. Gleb used to call her sewing “amateur nonsense” and her dresses “rags for the countryside.”
She switched on the machine. It rattled like an old friend.
Her neighbor Inga asked her to take in a dress — a simple blue one, loose and shapeless. Liza agreed, just to keep her hands busy. When Inga tried on the altered dress, she froze in front of the mirror.
“My God, I don’t look like a sack in it. I look like a woman.”
A week later, two more neighbors came. Then a friend of Inga’s. Liza sewed at night and, for the first time in years, did not feel tired. She felt alive.
They arrived at the registry office on the same day. Gleb saw her in the hallway and stopped still. He looked rumpled — his jacket was wrinkled, he had stubble on his face, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
“Liza, let’s talk.”
“About what?”
“I made a mistake. Do you understand? It’s hard for me alone. The apartment is a mess, I’m eating ready-made meals. Let’s get back together, let’s try again.”
Liza raised her eyes to him. Before, she had seen support in that face. Now she saw a man who could not even make himself soup.
“I’ve gotten used to freedom. Learn to cook for yourself. You’re supposed to be smart.”
He tried to take her hand. She pulled away.
“Liza, come on, you can’t be serious. We’ve been together for so many years, we have a shared apartment, shared…”
“We have nothing shared. There was your life, where I played the role of a servant. Now I have my own.”
Suitcases and travel bags
He was called into the office. Gleb walked away, turning back three times. Liza did not watch him go.
A month later, she found a studio — tiny, in an old building. The windows were huge, and light poured in like a stream. She put her sewing machine there, a mannequin, and began to truly live.
Inga practically dragged her to a city handicraft exhibition.
“You need to show people what you can do. Start living already, Liza!”
The exhibition was held in the old House of Culture. Liza set up her modest stand — three dresses on hangers, several photographs. For the first two hours, no one came up to her. Then an elderly lady stopped, touched the fabric, and turned the hem in her hands.
“Did you cut this yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Show me the seam.”
Liza turned the dress inside out. The woman studied the stitching for a long time and nodded.
“Proper hands. You can’t find hands like these anymore.”
By the end of the day, a line had formed at her stand. A young mother ordered a dress for her daughter. Someone else wrote down her phone number.
And then a man of about forty-five approached, wearing a tweed jacket, with a small beard and attentive eyes. He picked up a dress, studied the seams, ran his fingers over the darts, and held it up to the light.
“You don’t do this for money,” he said. “You do it for the soul.”
Liza did not know what to say.
“Arseny. I own a vintage clothing store called Yesterday. I need a master — not a seamstress for assembly-line work, but someone who understands fabric. I have a workshop. It’s been empty for six months. My clients want custom tailoring. Shall we try working together?”
He handed her a business card. Thick paper. On the back, written by hand: “Every garment tells a story.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Think. But not for too long.”
That evening, a message came from Gleb:
“I’ve thought everything over. I want to come back. Let’s try again. You understand, we were together for so many years.”
Liza was sitting in her studio. The sewing machine smelled of oil and heated metal. She took out Arseny’s business card and turned it over in her hands. She remembered how, a year earlier, Gleb had laughed at her work.
“Why are you fussing over those rags as if you had an atelier? It’s all just amateur nonsense.”
She looked at the message once more, then deleted it. Without hesitation. Then she dialed the number on the card.
“Arseny? This is Liza. I agree.”
There was silence on the other end for about three seconds, then she heard laughter — warm and sincere.
“I knew you would call. Come tomorrow and take a look at the workshop.”
She hung up and looked out the window. The city glowed with lights. Somewhere below, someone was laughing, car doors were slamming. Suddenly, Liza realized that for the first time in twelve years, she was not afraid of tomorrow.
Six months later, the workshop on the second floor of Yesterday became a place where people booked appointments a month in advance. Liza sewed dresses that women wore for years and later passed down to their daughters. Arseny did not interfere with her work. Sometimes he would simply come in with two cups of coffee, place one on the table, and leave silently.
One evening, after the last client had left, he lingered in the doorway.
“Liza, I have a strange request. Let’s go out for dinner. Not for work. Just like that.”
She raised her head from the pattern. Arseny stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, and for the first time in six months, he looked unsure of himself.
“All right,” she said. “But not at a restaurant. I’ll cook. Come to my place.”
He nodded, and something warm flickered in his eyes.
Biological sciences
That same evening, as Liza was walking home, she saw Gleb on the corner of her street. He was standing by a flower kiosk in a wrinkled shirt, looking at the bouquets in confusion. When he saw her, he stepped toward her.
“Liza, wait. I wanted to come by and talk to you properly.”
“No need.”
“But I’ve changed! I’ve learned how to cook, I clean up after myself, I realized that I need you. Let’s start everything over. I’ll fix things, I promise.”
Liza looked at him and saw what she had failed to notice for twelve years. He had not changed. He had simply been left without a servant and now wanted his comfort back. Not her — the comfort.
“Gleb, you still don’t understand the most important thing. Back then, you didn’t stop loving me. You never loved me at all. You loved what I did for you. And while living with you, I stopped loving myself. Only now have I started to come back to myself.”
She walked around him and continued on. He called after her, but she did not turn around.
The next evening, Arseny arrived with a bottle of dry red wine and a bouquet of wildflowers — simple, without pretension. Liza set the table and cooked what she herself loved: baked fish with herbs, grilled vegetables, and homemade bread.
They ate quietly, occasionally exchanging a few words about work, clients, and new fabrics. Then Arseny set down his fork and looked at her attentively.
“Do you know what I like about you?”
Textile and nonwoven materials
“What?”
“You don’t try to prove anything to anyone. You simply live. And that can be felt in every seam, in every piece you create.”
Liza was silent, unsure how to respond.
“I spent a long time looking for someone who sews not for money, but so that the garment can live. You are that person.”
“I just do what I know how to do.”
“No. You do what you feel. That is rare.”
He poured her some wine and lightly touched her hand. Without pressure, without demanding an answer. Simply showing that he was there. That she was not alone.
Liza raised her glass and suddenly understood: she was no longer afraid. Not afraid to be herself, not afraid to start over, not afraid to open herself to someone who saw her not as a function, but as a person. For the first time in years, she felt that she was living not someone else’s life, but her own.
And that was enough.
