“Are you seriously going to the parents’ meeting looking like that?” Sasha stood in the doorway, his mouth twisted into a scornful half-smile.
“What’s wrong with it?” Vika adjusted the scarf on her head, working hard to keep her voice steady.
“Nothing. Just… the other parents are going to stare. Masha is already insecure because of your…” He flicked his hand toward Vika’s head. “Because of how you look.”
“Because of how I look?” Vika’s voice trembled. “You mean because I beat cancer?”
“I mean you could at least try to look normal. Put on a wig, at least.”
He said it like he was asking her to change a blouse or fix her hair.
Vika stopped in front of the hallway mirror. The reflection showed a thin woman in a blue scarf tied in a careful knot. Her eyes were still large and expressive. Her cheekbones had sharpened, but her face hadn’t lost its femininity. She saw herself. But what did he see?
“Sasha, we’ve talked about this a hundred times,” she said quietly. “The wig rubs my scalp raw. It gives me headaches.”
“Then don’t go,” he said. “Tell them you’re sick.”
Vika turned slowly. Sasha had already moved to the window, scrolling on his phone. The profile was painfully familiar—straight nose, strong jaw, neat stubble. The same man who a year and a half earlier had held her hand in the oncology clinic and sworn everything would be fine.
“Don’t go to the meeting? Miss the discussion about the new school year?”
“So what? They never decide anything important.”
“It matters to me,” Vika answered. “And it matters to Masha.”
He looked up. Something like regret flashed across his eyes—and disappeared just as quickly.
“Fine. Go. Just don’t get upset later if people… react.”
The entire family had gathered at the kitchen table. Nina Petrovna, Sasha’s mother, was chopping salad. His sister Lena flipped through a magazine. Vika’s mother, Galina Ivanovna, was brewing tea. Little Masha sat drawing. Olga—Vika’s sister—had just come in from work.
“Vika, sweetheart, maybe you’ll try a wig after all?” Nina Petrovna began, avoiding her daughter-in-law’s gaze. “I saw some in the store that look very natural—real hair.”
“Nina Petrovna, I’ve already said it: a wig makes me uncomfortable.”
Vika ladled soup into bowls. Familiar movements—practiced over years of married life. The ladle clinked against the pot, an ordinary kitchen sound that suddenly seemed too loud.
“But think about Sasha,” Lena cut in. “It’s awkward for him to be seen with you in crowded places. Kostya saw you at the store yesterday—said everyone turned to look.”
“Everyone turned to look?” Vika tightened her grip on her mug. “And what exactly did they see that was so terrible?”
“Don’t play with words,” Sasha said, pouring himself cognac. “Lena’s right. A man wants to be proud of his wife—not explain himself to his friends.”
“Explain himself?” Vika’s voice rose. “For what? For the fact that I survived?”
Masha lifted her head from her sketchbook. Her pencil froze midair. Wide, watchful child’s eyes ran from Mom to Dad, from Grandma to Aunt. Vika caught that look and understood instantly: her daughter knew. Maybe not in the language of adults, but in the way children sense everything under the surface. Kids always know when something inside a family is cracking.
“Vika, don’t raise your voice in front of the child,” Galina Ivanovna said. “But Sasha is partly right. A woman should take care of herself.”
“Mom!” Vika spun toward her. “You too?”
Galina Ivanovna avoided her daughter’s eyes, nervously smoothing the tablecloth as if wiping away crumbs that weren’t there.
“I’m only saying there could be a compromise. Pretty scarves, hats…”
“She already wears scarves,” Sasha snorted. “Like old Aunt Zina from our courtyard. Except Zina is eighty.”
His laugh was short and cruel. Vika set her spoon down. The soup suddenly tasted like water.
Vika pushed back from the table and stepped onto the balcony. Olga followed.
August was winding down, and the evening air felt unusually gentle. Somewhere below, children were playing; strangers’ voices drifted up. Normal life went on, unaware of someone else’s private collapse.
“Vik, don’t listen to them,” Olga said softly. “You’re beautiful.”
“Ol, I’m exhausted,” Vika whispered. “Every day it’s the same. Like I shaved my head just to spite them.”
Olga put an arm around her shoulders. The warmth in that touch felt real—rare, lately.
“Do you remember your hair?” Olga asked. “Down to your waist. Thick. Everyone envied it.”
“I remember,” Vika said. “Sasha used to say he fell in love with my hair the first time he saw it. Turns out that’s the only thing he ever loved.”
Memories hit her like a bright wave: twenty-year-old Vika with a cascade of chestnut hair spilling over her shoulders when she laughed. Sasha couldn’t walk past without touching it. Your hair smells like sunshine, he used to say. And now he turned away when she untied the scarf at night.
The balcony door flew open.
“Finished putting on your little tragedy?” Sasha swayed slightly. “Olga, go home. Don’t poison my wife against the family.”
The smell of cognac mixed with the evening air. Vika stepped back without meaning to.
“Sasha, you’ve had too much,” Olga tried to soothe him.
“In my house I decide how much I drink!” he snapped. “And maybe if my wife looked like a woman, and not like…” He stopped short.
“Say it,” Vika turned to him. “Not like what?”
“Like a sick person!” he burst out. “You look sick, and everyone sees it!”
The words hung there—hard and final. Sasha immediately looked horrified, as if he wanted to grab them and shove them back inside, but it was too late.
In the living room, silence fell. Masha raised her head from her drawing.
“Mom… why is Dad yelling?”
The child’s question cut through the charged air. Nina Petrovna sprang up, fussing with her apron.
“Daddy’s tired from work, sunshine,” she said, stroking her granddaughter’s hair. “Go to your room and draw there.”
When Masha left—abandoning an unfinished picture on the table, a house with a chimney and little curls of smoke—Nina Petrovna turned to Vika.
“Vika, try to understand Sasha too. A man cares about his wife’s appearance. It’s his status.”
“Status?” Vika sank onto the couch. “I thought what mattered to a man was family. Love. Support.”
The couch was soft and comfortable. They’d chosen it together three years earlier, arguing over the shade. Back then it had felt like the biggest problem in the world—what exact tone of beige to pick.
“Don’t be naive,” Lena said, putting down her magazine. “Sasha was always proud of your beauty. He showed your photos to his friends, bragged. And now what is he supposed to show?”
“Maybe that his wife is strong,” Vika said steadily. “That she went through chemo, surgery, and survived.”
“Oh, stop playing the heroine,” Sasha scoffed, dropping into an armchair. “Everyone gets sick, everyone gets treated. But not everyone walks around bald afterward and scares people.”
“Sasha!” even Galina Ivanovna protested. “That’s too much!”
“What? I’m telling the truth!” he snapped. “Even in summer she refused to wear a wig. We went to a café, and the waitress nearly dropped a plate when the scarf slipped!”
Vika remembered that day. A hot July afternoon, the café’s air conditioner barely working. Her scarf really had slipped, revealing a scalp covered with the first soft fuzz of regrowth. The waitress froze with the tray, eyes widening. Then, a second later, she smiled and said, “Your earrings are gorgeous.” But Sasha sulked all evening and insisted they never go anywhere again.
“Do you remember that day?” Vika looked straight at him. “You said you were afraid. Afraid you’d lost the woman you fell in love with.”
“And? It’s true!” Sasha snapped. “You became different!”
“I became bald,” she said. “That’s all. Inside, I’m the same person.”
“No!” Sasha slammed his fist into the armrest. “You became… broken. Always crying, always feeling sorry for yourself!”
“I cried for a month after the surgery,” Vika said, her voice shaking. “A month, Sasha. And you? You removed every mirror in the house!”
It was true. All the mirrors disappeared in one day while she was in the hospital. Sasha claimed he wanted to surprise her—replace them with new ones. The new ones never appeared. Only a tiny bathroom mirror remained, the kind you had to bend toward just to see your whole face.
“So you wouldn’t upset yourself!”
“You’re lying,” Vika said. “You did it so you wouldn’t have to look.”
Nina Petrovna stepped between them.
“Enough! Vika, Sasha is right about one thing—you could try for the sake of the family. At least try a wig.”
“I did!” Vika shot back. “It gave me headaches. My scalp couldn’t breathe!”
She truly had tried. An expensive natural-hair wig Sasha had ordered online—chestnut curls almost like her own. But it sat on her head like dead weight; her skin turned red and itchy. And worst of all, the mirror showed her a stranger—costumed, fake.
“Other women manage,” Lena added. “My friend bought a wig right after chemo. Her husband supported her, and she went back to work without a problem.”
“I’m happy for your friend,” Vika said. “But I’m not her. I’m me.”
That night turned into a family “council” that felt more like a trial. They arranged themselves in a half-circle in the living room: Nina Petrovna—stern and perfectly groomed, Lena—ready to defend her brother, and Galina Ivanovna—Vika’s mother, nervously fingering the beads around her neck. Sasha stood by the window with a glass of cognac. Everyone talked about wigs, about how Vika’s appearance upset the household, about how it was time to “pull herself together.”
Olga, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly stood.
“Enough! You all gathered here to bully a person for being sick? Aren’t you ashamed?”
“Olga, stay out of it!” Sasha barked. “This is our family business!”
“Family?” Olga snapped. “Family supports—you don’t humiliate.”
“Who’s humiliating her?” Nina Petrovna protested. “We’re giving advice, what’s best!”
“Best for who?” Olga demanded. “For Sasha, so he won’t feel embarrassed? For you, so the neighbors won’t whisper?”
“For everyone!” Lena shouted. “For Masha too! Kids at school tease her because her mom is bald!”
Vika stood up so fast it felt like ice water had been dumped over her head. Masha—her sunshine, her reason to breathe—was suffering because of her, and she hadn’t even known.
“What?” Vika whispered. “They tease Masha? Why didn’t I know?”
“Did you even ask?” Sasha sneered. “Lately you only think about yourself.”
The room fell silent—thick with judgment. Vika stared at him, unable to believe what she’d heard. The man who once vowed to love her in sickness and in health was accusing her of selfishness.
“I only think about myself?” Vika stepped close to him. “Me—the one who went through chemo and still smiled at Masha so she wouldn’t be scared? Me—the one who cooked dinners for all of you when the smell of food made me sick?”
“Oh, please,” Sasha waved her off. “What, you want a medal? Other women endure worse.”
“Like what?” Vika asked.
“My mother, for example!” Sasha fired back. “My dad was paralyzed and she cared for him for ten years. And she didn’t whine!”
“Sasha, that’s different—” Nina Petrovna tried to interrupt.
“No, Mom, let her hear it! You were sick for a year, that’s all. And you act like the whole world owes you.”
Vika felt his words cut into her mind like shards. Did he really believe her illness was nothing? That months of fear, pain, fighting for her life were just the drama of a spoiled woman?
“I’m not asking the world,” she said hoarsely. “I’m asking my husband to support me.”
“And how am I not supporting you?” Sasha snapped. “I buy scarves, I drive you to doctors!”
“You’re ashamed of me.”
“And what is there to be proud of?” Sasha blurted—and immediately went quiet.
The sentence hung in the air like a verdict. Galina Ivanovna covered her face with her hands. Olga grabbed Vika’s hand. Even Nina Petrovna and Lena fell silent. Everyone understood: he’d finally said what he’d been thinking all along.
“Say it again,” Vika said softly. “Say what you just said.”
“Vika, that’s not what I meant—”
“No,” she said. “That’s exactly what you meant. That’s what you’ve been thinking this whole time. That I’m nothing to be proud of.”
“Listen, let’s not—”
“Let’s not pretend we still have a family,” Vika cut in—and tore the scarf off her head.
Her shaved scalp shone under the chandelier light. A surgical scar was visible at the back—proof of the battle she’d won, the feat no one here seemed proud of.
“There,” she said, voice steady. “Look. All of you. This is me. Not the long-haired beauty you liked to show off—me. A woman who survived, with a bald head.”
“Vika, put the scarf back on,” Nina Petrovna muttered. “Masha might walk in.”
“So what?” Vika snapped. “She’ll see her mother. Not a monster—a mother.”
“A mother who throws tantrums,” Sasha spat. “You always make everything dramatic!”
Dramatic. Her—who had spent half a year staring death in the face, forcing smiles for her daughter every morning, swallowing pain and despair, tolerating looks of pity and disgust.
“I’m leaving,” Vika said, heading for the door. “I’m taking Masha, and I’m leaving.”
“To where?” Sasha blocked her path. “This is my home!”
“And my daughter’s,” Vika answered. “A judge can decide who she stays with.”
“A judge?” Sasha laughed. “You think a court will leave a child with a sick mother?”
“I’m not sick,” Vika said. “I’ve been in remission for six months.”
“What does it matter? You’re always on pills, always running to doctors.”
“That’s prevention.”
“It’s proof you’re defective!” Sasha shouted—and instantly bit his tongue.
The slap cracked through the room so loudly everyone flinched. Sasha clutched his cheek, staring at her in shock and rage.
“You… you hit me?”
“I should’ve done it a long time ago,” Vika said. “The first time you turned away from me in bed. The first time you said touching me disgusted you.”
“Vika!” Galina Ivanovna gasped. “You never told me…”
“What was I supposed to say, Mom? That my husband is repulsed by me?”
The illness had taken more than her hair. It stole her right to closeness, tenderness, love. Sasha couldn’t even look at her without disgust, and she’d kept enduring it, telling herself it was temporary, that love was stronger than fear.
Masha came out of her room holding a drawing.
“Mom, look! I drew you!”
On the page was a woman in a beautiful scarf, smiling. A child could still see beauty where adults saw only a flaw.
“Beautiful, my sunshine,” Vika said, crouching to her daughter’s level. “Mash, we’re going to Grandma Galya’s for a few days, okay?”
“And Dad?”
“Dad will stay home. He has work.”
“Mom… why are you crying?”
“Happy tears, sweetheart,” Vika whispered. “Come on—let’s pack.”
When Vika and Masha left the room, Sasha poured himself more cognac. His hands were shaking—whether from anger or from the dawning understanding of what he’d done, he couldn’t tell.
“She’ll come back. Where can she go?”
“My son,” Nina Petrovna sat beside him. “Maybe you went too far?”
“Mom, you can see it yourself—she changed. She’s not the woman I married.”
“But she’s the mother of your child.”
“So what? Am I supposed to spend my whole life dealing with her complexes?”
Olga, who had stayed silent, stood up.
“You know what? All of you in this room… you’re monsters. Especially you, Sasha. Vika will recover. Her hair will grow back. But you’ll still be a small, cowardly selfish man.”
“Olga!” Lena protested. “How can you talk to my brother like that?”
“The way he deserves,” Olga shot back. “And here’s the thing: in two years, when Vika is walking around with gorgeous hair and a new husband, you’ll be biting your elbows with regret. And it’ll be too late.”
With that, Olga stormed out, slamming the door.
Two years passed.
Vika stood in front of the mirror and combed the hair that had grown back. It was shorter than before, but thick and shiny. Every morning she looked at her reflection with gratitude—not just because the hair had returned, but because life had given her a second chance. Masha sat on the bed beside her, chattering about school, friends, a new teacher. The girl was blooming in a home filled with calm and love.
“Hello?”
“Vika? It’s Lena. Can we meet?”
Her former sister-in-law sounded uncertain, almost ingratiating. Vika hadn’t heard that voice in a year.
“Why?”
“Sasha… he wants you to come back.”
Vika gave a soft, humorless laugh. Once, those words would’ve made her heart race, would’ve poured hope into her veins. Now they only sounded strange.
“Tell Sasha I’m happy,” she said. “I have a job, friends, my daughter. And yes—my hair grew back. But it doesn’t matter.”
“Vika, he changed. He realized his mistakes.”
“Lena, he didn’t change,” Vika replied evenly. “His new woman left him, and he’s alone. Nina Petrovna told my mother.”
“How do you—”
“Doesn’t matter. Tell him this: I forgave him. But I’m not coming back. Not ever.”
Vika ended the call and hugged her daughter. Forgiveness hadn’t been easy, but it freed her from the anger and hurt that poisoned life.
“Come on, sunshine,” she said. “Uncle Igor promised to take us to the circus.”
“Uncle Igor is good,” Masha said. “He says you’re the prettiest.”
“Even when I had no hair?”
“He said he never saw you without hair,” Masha shrugged seriously. “But he’s sure you’re always beautiful.”
Vika smiled.
Igor had entered her life six months earlier—a colleague from her new job, a man who saw in her not a victim, but a strong woman. He didn’t pry into her past, didn’t pity her, didn’t try to “save” her. He simply loved her—quietly, reliably, without theatrics or grand speeches.
The doorbell rang—Igor was there. He brought flowers: a modest bouquet, and circus tickets. Masha ran to him squealing, and he scooped her up, spinning her until she giggled.
“How are my beauties doing?” he asked, kissing Vika on the cheek.
“Wonderful,” Vika said, watching her daughter show Igor a new drawing. “Truly wonderful.”
And Sasha, at that very moment, was sitting alone in an empty apartment, staring at old photographs. In them Vika had long hair; she was laughing, arms around him. Back then he hadn’t valued that happiness—he’d taken it for granted. Only now did he understand he’d lost it for good.
He poured cognac and drank it down. Alcohol had become his only comfort through long, lonely evenings. Marina—the woman he’d dated after the divorce—had left a month earlier, tired of his constant bitterness and his habit of comparing her to his ex-wife.
Olga had been right: he was left alone with his selfishness. And Vika had risen again like a phoenix from ashes.
But he would never see it.
Outside, the lights of the evening city flickered on. Somewhere out there, his ex-wife and daughter were laughing at the circus with a man who knew how to love them for real—while he flipped through old photographs.
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