I hadn’t planned to step out before eight that morning. My usual rhythm held steady: strong coffee from the pot, a slice of bread with cheese, bag already by the entrance. Marko was still deep in sleephis evening shift meant he wouldn’t stir until one in the afternoon. I pulled on my coat, lifted the trash bag, and slipped outside.
By the bins I crossed paths with Vesna from the third floor. She carried a cardboard box and looked eager to chat. Vesna always sought conversationthat had turned into her chief occupation since retiring six years back.
“Heard the news?” she announced gravely, skipping any greeting. “The camera finally got repaired. The building manager posted a note yesterdayeverything gets recorded now and kept for two weeks.”
“Fine,” I answered without much thought. “About time.”
“Exactly,” she echoed with clear satisfaction. “Recall the bicycle taken from the ground floor last October? Nothing came of itthe camera was broken, they claimed. Now it’s working. They’d better not test it.”
I nodded, dropped the bag, and continued toward the tram stop. Along the way my mind turned to the client meeting, the invoice due before lunch, and stopping for vitamins at the pharmacy. The camera slipped from thought at once.
It returned to me only at four that afternoon. Standing at the supermarket checkout, shifting items onto the belt, a quiet but sharp sensation hit me. I froze with the milk carton still in my grip.
The camera.
Marko rises at one. He steps out to smoke on the stairsnever inside, I’ve banned it. Everyone in our building knows this. He leaves at a quarter past one, never later than half past. Every single day. Five years in this place, and that pattern has held without exception.
Yet today marks his day off.
I set the milk down and reached for my phone.
No answer. I tried once moreprolonged rings, then the automated message. I tucked the phone away, settled the bill, stepped outside, and dialed again. Still nothing.
“He’s resting,” I told myself. Late night after the evening shift, so he’s sleeping now.
Even so, I quickened my pace to the tram.
Our building is a nine-story structure from 1983. The lift runs when it feels like it; the stairwell carries the scent of fresh paint and aged timber. The camera sits above the main doorsmall, black, easy to overlook. Once a red dot blinked above it, then it faded. We grew accustomed to its uselessness. Last summer someone smashed the mailboxes on the ground floor and tried involving the police to review footage. “Camera’s broken, no record,” they were told. The culprit was never caught. After that, expectations stayed low.
I entered the lobby and glanced up by habit. The red dot shone steady.
Calm and unwavering, no flicker. Simply lit.
I climbed the four flights on foot, skipping the lift. The landing stayed silent. Keys out, door open.
Unfamiliar shoes waited in the entry.
Not entirely unfamiliar. I’d seen them before. Light brown suede, size forty-three. They rested beside Marko’s slippers, aligned toe to toe, as though deliberately straightened.
I remained in the doorway a full ten seconds, just staring at them.
Then I removed my coat and hung it on the hook. Set the shopping bag on the floor. Every motion deliberate and unhurried.
No sound reached me from inside.
I moved to the kitchen, filled the kettle, and sat on the stool. My hands lay flat on the table while I studied them like they belonged to someone else. Long fingers, a silver ring with a modest stone on the left handMarko had given it for our third anniversary. Back then we spent three days in Split, in a modest hotel by the harbor, strolling the waterfront. He purchased the ring from a jeweler near the main square. I’d admired it in the window without saying more. He remembered.
The kettle whistled. I rose, poured the water, added a tea bag. Handled each step with care, as if managing something fragile.
Mug in hand, I walked back to the hallway.
“Marko,” I said softly.
Nothing.
“Marko, I’m back.”
Movement stirred beyond the bedroom door. The bed frame creaked. A rustle followed, a pause, then another noise I couldn’t name yet recognized at once.
The door swung open.
Marko stepped out in a vest and track pants, hair disheveled, gaze sliding past me. That avoidance struck me immediately. He had always met my eyes directlyone of the first traits I’d noted about him, open and steady. Now he looked aside.
“You’re home early,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied. “Finished sooner.”
“I was asleep.”
“I hear that.”
Quiet settled. I sipped my tea and watched him. He stayed framed in the bedroom doorway, unmoving.
“Davor dropped in,” he said at last. “Called from his car, I let him up. We talked for a while, then he rested.”
“Right,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He passed me into the kitchen, opened the fridge, took out water.
“Davor!” he shouted toward the room. “Come out, Ivana’s here!”
Another creak. Silence. Then Davor Kovač emergedDavor, who had worked alongside Marko at the same firm for six years. I knew him from company events and Marko’s birthday the previous year. Tall, fair-haired, shoulders slightly rounded. He looked freshly woken now: reddened eyes, one cheek creased.
“Hello, Ivana,” he said. “Sorry for the intrusion. I stopped by to see Marko and we both nodded off.”
“It’s fine,” I answered.
Both men watched me. I kept my eyes on the mug.
“Right then,” Davor said. “I should head off. Work calls.”
“Sure,” Marko replied. “Take care.”
Davor gathered his things in the hallway, then the front door closed.
Marko and I stood alone.
He poured water, drained the glass, set it in the sink.
“Why the silence?” he asked.
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
I placed the mug down.
“Listen,” I said. “Did you know the building camera was repaired?”
He went still. Something crossed his face quickly, barely visible. He set the glass on the sink edge with extra force.
“No,” he said. “Hadn’t heard.”
“This morning. Vesna mentioned it.”
A pause.
“And?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just thought I’d say.”
I never started an argument. Not for lack of words. I held plentymonths of collected remarks about small shifts. The phone always face-down, not occasionally. Evening shifts arriving more often than before. Replies to messages arriving later, by half an hour or an hour, yet noticeable. A faint scent, not cologne, something else I couldn’t place but knew.
Back in June he returned late and blamed work. I asked nothing. I simply set his plate down and withdrew to another room. On the couch I wondered if paranoia had taken hold, if exhaustion or my own mind was inventing trouble.
Later I rose and checked his jacket pockets. Empty. That brought no peaceonly the realization that checking at all carried its own weight. Ordinary people leave others’ belongings alone.
I held back because thinking required space.
That evening Marko left for his shift. I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop, feigning focus. Near nine I texted Maja: “Can you talk?”
She rang three minutes later.
“What is it?”
I described the shoes, how he emerged from the bedroom, the claim he had been sleeping, and the camera.
Maja stayed quiet throughout. That patient listening was why I valued her above the restshe never cut in or shifted to her own stories.
“Are you certain?” she asked once I finished.
“No,” I admitted. “Not certain.”
“Then there you are.”
“But the shoes sat exactly like that. Toe to toe. Arranged. No one places shoes that way just to visit a friend for a talk.”
Maja waited a moment.
“It still proves nothing,” she said.
“I know.”
“You might be mistaken.”
“I know, Maja. I understand the possibility. Yet looking at those shoes I felt: I already know. Proof isn’t required. I simply know.”
“A feeling isn’t evidence.”
“I know.” I hesitated. “Still, sometimes a feeling cuts truer than evidence ever could.”
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know yet. Probably speak with him.”
“When?”
“Not today.”
We continued a while longer, filling the line with ordinary talk to delay ending the call. Before hanging up Maja added, “Don’t bottle it. If it hurts, come to me.” I agreed.
He arrived home around half past eleven. I lay in bed with a book. He glanced in, noted “still awake” as fact rather than question, then showered. Returning, he settled beside me and reached for his phone.
Words on the page blurred. I reread one line four times without grasping it.
“Ivana,” he said into the darkness.
“Yes?”
“Are you angry?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
He rolled onto his side. Minutes later his breathing leveledsleep or pretense.
I stared at the ceiling. White, with a narrow crack in the upper left corner from last autumn. Marko had said it needed filling. It never was.
Thirty-four years old. Eight years married. I recalled our first visit to this apartment, still bare with faded striped walls. My insistence on replacing the wallpaper before moving furniture. His laughter, calling it unimportant next to the sunny windows.
I remembered painting the bedroom together. Paint splattered on his temple as he worked. My laughter, his in return.
Our first real fight surfaced toohis mother, money. Three days without speech in the same rooms, unbearable. On the fourth he left my favorite tea on the table without comment. I said nothing either. We drank it, then began speaking, first guardedly, then freely.
All of it had existed. None of it had vanished.
Yet the shoes had appeared as well.
The following morning I rang the building management.
“Good morning,” I said. “I live at Ante Starčević Street 12, fourth floor. You repaired the entrance camera yesterday.”
“Yes,” the voice confirmed. “Has something occurred?”
“No. I simply want to confirmrecordings from the last day are retained?”
“They are. Fourteen days of storage.”
“Thank you.”
I replaced the receiver.
Then lifted it again and called Marko.
“Hello?” he answered at once.
“Hi. Where are you?”
“At work. Did something happen?”
“No,” I said. “Nothing. Listen, remember I mentioned the building camera yesterday?”
A brief pause, barely there. I registered it clearly, like a marked gap on tape.
“I remember.”
“Recordings stay for two weeks. I learned that just now.”
Extended silence, longer than needed for a simple reply.
“Understood,” he said eventually.
“Yes,” I said. “Understood.”
His breathing reached me through the linemeasured, deliberate. The sound of someone forcing even breaths.
“Ivana,” he began.
“Not now,” I cut in. “We’ll discuss it this evening. At home.”
I ended the call.
Several minutes passed with the phone still in my hand. Light rain drifted outside, more mist than downpour. Watching it, I realized the recording itself wasn’t necessary. What I needed was precisely that pause, that silence stretched beyond normal.
He returned early, before seven. I hadn’t started dinner. He set his bag down, removed his shoes, and came to the kitchen. I sat with tea.
He took the chair opposite. No warm-up questions, no easing injust sat and met my eyes.
We remained quiet perhaps three minutes. I tracked the time by shifts in his expression: first closed, then weary, then something harder to define.
“This has been happening for some time,” he said.
“How long?”
“Seven months.”
I nodded. Seven months placed it in February. February brought a visit to his parents for the holidays. Flowers arrived on March 8a large bunch of yellow tulips. I arranged them on the windowsill and watched them for days, vivid and full of life. Seven months.
“Who is she?”
He gave a name. I didn’t recognize it.
“Does she work at your place?”
“No. We met by accident.”
“By accident,” I echoed.
He stayed silent. Offered no explanations, hunted for no phrasessimply quiet, and the quiet carried more truth than speech could.
“Had you intended to tell me?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I considered it. Couldn’t find the way.”
“And now you can?”
“Now there’s no option.”
“The camera.”
He lifted his gaze.
“No,” he said. “Not only that. Camera or not… Ivana, I couldn’t keep going this way. I couldn’t manage it myself. Living beside you while knowing…”
“Yet you kept it up for seven months.”
“Yes.”
The quiet grew thick enough to hear the bathroom tap dripping. Long overdue for repair. A steady, small rhythm: drop, pause, drop.
“Do you want to go to her?”
He took time before answering. I studied his face, every line familiarwrinkles at the eyes that had formed three years earlier. I recalled him examining them in the mirror, joking about age while I laughed. Now those lines seemed new.
“I don’t know what I want,” he said quietly. “That’s honest. I’m not dodging. I truly don’t know.”
“A poor answer.”
“I know.”
“Marko.” I spoke his name slowly, testing its sound. “You see this isn’t merely ‘I don’t know’? It demands a response.”
“Yes. I do.”
“And?”
He focused on the table.
“I don’t want her,” he said. “It was something else. Nothing I could set against you. I’m not comparing. There it’s entirely different.”
“But you went there seven months.”
“Yes.”
“What made it worth that?”
He stayed quiet a long while.
“Easy,” he said at last. “It was simply easy. No duties, no weight. Meet, separate. No expectations either way. Like… air somewhere else.”
“And here breathing is difficult?”
“No. Here it’s real. And real always weighs more. My failing, not knowing how to carry it. Not yours.”
I stood, moved to the window, paused, returned. His eyes followed.
“Then this is what happens,” I said. “Today you go to Matej’s. Pack enough for a few days and leave. I need room to think.”
“Ivana…”
“I’m not sending you away for good. I’m asking for several days alone. Can you give me that?”
He nodded.
“All right,” he said.
He rose and entered the bedroom. I heard the closet open, careful packing. He kept the sounds soft. Soon he reappeared with a small bag.
“Ivana.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at him. The regret showed plainly, not performed.
“I know,” I said. “Go.”
Three days passed alone.
No calls to him, Maja, or my mother. Work, return, cook for one. Strange after years of portions for two or three on weekends. Half the pasta now went to waste.
The first day I cleanedfloors, dust, discarding items long neglected. Not from anger or erasure, simply to occupy my hands.
That evening I rang my mother. Not to confess, only to hear her. She spoke of the garden, neighbors, a television program. Her voice carried its usual warmth and tiredness. Certain things remain fixed.
The second day I called management again.
“May I obtain the camera recording?”
“For what purpose?”
“I need to view yesterday’s footage. A personal matter.”
They explained recordings release only with formal request and for specific reasons theft, damage, similar cases. Casual viewing was not allowed.
I thanked them and set the phone down.
The recording no longer mattered. His reaction the day I mentioned the camera on the phone had given me what I soughtthe extended pause, the overly controlled breathing.
I had needed the truth. I had it.
On the third day I understood the decision concerned myself, not him. Not what he had done or how it started, but what I wanted.
Coffee by the window brought the familiar view: street, trees, edge of the playground. So known, so routine. If he vanished entirely tomorrow, what of this shared familiarity would remain? What would be lost?
Eight years. Not mere time together, but something builtapartment, daily paths, Friday films, comfortable silence. He knows mornings leave me wordless for the first half hour. I know large stores disorient him and spark self-irritation. Small details gathered slowly, forming unseen ground.
Could it endure once fractured? Or did it resemble a wall crackplastered over yet always present beneath?
I didn’t know. Yet I saw I wanted to discover.
On the fourth day a message arrived: “May I come by?”
I answered: “Yes.”
He arrived that evening carrying bread and milk, as though returning from errands rather than absence. I let it pass. We sat with tea at the kitchen table, and it struck me how much of our life had unfolded here.
“Have you decided?” he asked.
“Almost.”
“And?”
I regarded my hands. The ring caught lamplight.
“I need to know one thing,” I said. “Was she real to you? Or something you can’t clearly define even now?”
He remained silent longer than thought or word choice required. I saw him reaching for honesty.
“No,” he said finally. “Not real. It was… an escape. From what, I’m unsure. From myself, perhaps. There everything stayed simple. No responsibility, nothing serious. Just easy.”
“And here it’s heavy?”
“Here it’s real. And real always carries more weight. My inability to manage it, not any fault of yours.”
I refilled my cup. My hands stayed steady, surprising me.
“Have you ended it with her?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Two days ago.”
“Before I asked you to come.”
“Yes.”
That detail mattered. I couldn’t yet say why, but it did. He hadn’t stopped because I summoned him. He had chosen to stop beforehand.
“Good,” I said.
“Does that mean…”
“It means we can attempt this. Not immediately. Not pretending nothing occurred that can’t happen, and I need you to accept it. But attempt.”
He watched me. His expression held no simple relief, something more layered. As though he grasped only now what stood to be lost, fully present.
“I need something from you,” I went on.
“Whatever you ask.”
“Not whatever. Specifically: we go to a family psychologist. More than once. Are you prepared?”
“Yes.”
“You answered without pause.”
“I’m prepared, Ivana. I mean it. Three days gave me time to think. I’ve understood several things.”
“Such as?”
He studied his hands before meeting my eyes.
“That I acted not from anything lacking here, but from something lacking in me. An ability to face difficulty, to stay with what is real. I fled toward ease. Calling it by name, it’s cowardice.”
I said nothing. He continued.
“I must sort this for myself. Not to persuade you. Because if I don’t, it may happen again. Perhaps not with her, perhaps something else. But it will repeat.”
That stood as the most direct statement he had made.
“Good,” I said once more.
We lingered. Talk shifted graduallystill cautious, yet away from the central matter. He mentioned work; I spoke of a client. Simple exchanges after prolonged quiet.
“One more thing,” I said as he prepared to rise.
“Yes?”
“The bathroom tap. Dripping two weeks now. Fix it tomorrow.”
He regarded me briefly. A small movement touched the corner of his mouthnot quite a smile, yet close.
“Understood,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
Vesna caught me by the lift on Friday.
“Heard?” she asked with the same gravity as the week before. “The camera’s off again! Technical trouble, they say. Second time this month. Unacceptable! I contacted managementthey promise repair by week’s end. We know how that goes.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Unacceptable.”
The lift arrived. I entered and pressed four.
“Have you noted the dispatcher’s number?” Vesna called through the closing doors. “I have it if you need.”
Doors shut.
My reflection in the metal showed blurred and faint, typical of older lifts. Thirty-four, silver ring, coat from the third shelf. Tired features, somewhat drawn from recent days. An ordinary face.
The camera had functioned for precisely one day.
One day from eight years. One day from nearly three thousand shared in one apartment, one building, one roof.
One day proved sufficient.
The lift halted at the fourth floor. Doors parted. I stepped out.
The apartment sat quietMarko still at his shift. Coat off, kettle on, fridge open. Shelves held bread, milk, a container. Ordinary fridge. Ordinary kitchen. Ordinary apartment.
Ordinary life carrying a visible crack. Not newly formed, simply revealed.
Water in the mug, and the thought that this is often how matters stand. Neither fully well nor fully ended, but something between requiring one to remain and examine. No simple replies, yet honest questions.
And at times, honest replies.
The bathroom tap had stopped dripping. Marko had repaired it that morning as promised.
That, too, carried meaning.I hadn’t planned to step out before eight that morning. My usual rhythm held steady: strong coffee from the pot, a slice of bread with cheese, bag already by the entrance. Marko was still deep in sleephis evening shift meant he wouldn’t stir until one in the afternoon. I pulled on my coat, lifted the trash bag, and slipped outside.
By the bins I crossed paths with Vesna from the third floor. She carried a cardboard box and looked eager to chat. Vesna always sought conversationthat had turned into her chief occupation since retiring six years back.
“Heard the news?” she announced gravely, skipping any greeting. “The camera finally got repaired. The building manager posted a note yesterdayeverything gets recorded now and kept for two weeks.”
“Fine,” I answered without much thought. “About time.”
“Exactly,” she echoed with clear satisfaction. “Recall the bicycle taken from the ground floor last October? Nothing came of itthe camera was broken, they claimed. Now it’s working. They’d better not test it.”
I nodded, dropped the bag, and continued toward the tram stop. Along the way my mind turned to the client meeting, the invoice due before lunch, and stopping for vitamins at the pharmacy. The camera slipped from thought at once.
It returned to me only at four that afternoon. Standing at the supermarket checkout, shifting items onto the belt, a quiet but sharp sensation hit me. I froze with the milk carton still in my grip.
The camera.
Marko rises at one. He steps out to smoke on the stairsnever inside, I’ve banned it. Everyone in our building knows this. He leaves at a quarter past one, never later than half past. Every single day. Five years in this place, and that pattern has held without exception.
Yet today marks his day off.
I set the milk down and reached for my phone.
No answer. I tried once moreprolonged rings, then the automated message. I tucked the phone away, settled the bill, stepped outside, and dialed again. Still nothing.
“He’s resting,” I told myself. Late night after the evening shift, so he’s sleeping now.
Even so, I quickened my pace to the tram.
Our building is a nine-story structure from 1983. The lift runs when it feels like it; the stairwell carries the scent of fresh paint and aged timber. The camera sits above the main doorsmall, black, easy to overlook. Once a red dot blinked above it, then it faded. We grew accustomed to its uselessness. Last summer someone smashed the mailboxes on the ground floor and tried involving the police to review footage. “Camera’s broken, no record,” they were told. The culprit was never caught. After that, expectations stayed low.
I entered the lobby and glanced up by habit. The red dot shone steady.
Calm and unwavering, no flicker. Simply lit.
I climbed the four flights on foot, skipping the lift. The landing stayed silent. Keys out, door open.
Unfamiliar shoes waited in the entry.
Not entirely unfamiliar. I’d seen them before. Light brown suede, size forty-three. They rested beside Marko’s slippers, aligned toe to toe, as though deliberately straightened.
I remained in the doorway a full ten seconds, just staring at them.
Then I removed my coat and hung it on the hook. Set the shopping bag on the floor. Every motion deliberate and unhurried.
No sound reached me from inside.
I moved to the kitchen, filled the kettle, and sat on the stool. My hands lay flat on the table while I studied them like they belonged to someone else. Long fingers, a silver ring with a modest stone on the left handMarko had given it for our third anniversary. Back then we spent three days in Split, in a modest hotel by the harbor, strolling the waterfront. He purchased the ring from a jeweler near the main square. I’d admired it in the window without saying more. He remembered.
The kettle whistled. I rose, poured the water, added a tea bag. Handled each step with care, as if managing something fragile.
Mug in hand, I walked back to the hallway.
“Marko,” I said softly.
Nothing.
“Marko, I’m back.”
Movement stirred beyond the bedroom door. The bed frame creaked. A rustle followed, a pause, then another noise I couldn’t name yet recognized at once.
The door swung open.
Marko stepped out in a vest and track pants, hair disheveled, gaze sliding past me. That avoidance struck me immediately. He had always met my eyes directlyone of the first traits I’d noted about him, open and steady. Now he looked aside.
“You’re home early,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied. “Finished sooner.”
“I was asleep.”
“I hear that.”
Quiet settled. I sipped my tea and watched him. He stayed framed in the bedroom doorway, unmoving.
“Davor dropped in,” he said at last. “Called from his car, I let him up. We talked for a while, then he rested.”
“Right,” I said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He passed me into the kitchen, opened the fridge, took out water.
“Davor!” he shouted toward the room. “Come out, Ivana’s here!”
Another creak. Silence. Then Davor Kovač emergedDavor, who had worked alongside Marko at the same firm for six years. I knew him from company events and Marko’s birthday the previous year. Tall, fair-haired, shoulders slightly rounded. He looked freshly woken now: reddened eyes, one cheek creased.
“Hello, Ivana,” he said. “Sorry for the intrusion. I stopped by to see Marko and we both nodded off.”
“It’s fine,” I answered.
Both men watched me. I kept my eyes on the mug.
“Right then,” Davor said. “I should head off. Work calls.”
“Sure,” Marko replied. “Take care.”
Davor gathered his things in the hallway, then the front door closed.
Marko and I stood alone.
He poured water, drained the glass, set it in the sink.
“Why the silence?” he asked.
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
I placed the mug down.
“Listen,” I said. “Did you know the building camera was repaired?”
He went still. Something crossed his face quickly, barely visible. He set the glass on the sink edge with extra force.
“No,” he said. “Hadn’t heard.”
“This morning. Vesna mentioned it.”
A pause.
“And?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just thought I’d say.”
I never started an argument. Not for lack of words. I held plentymonths of collected remarks about small shifts. The phone always face-down, not occasionally. Evening shifts arriving more often than before. Replies to messages arriving later, by half an hour or an hour, yet noticeable. A faint scent, not cologne, something else I couldn’t place but knew.
Back in June he returned late and blamed work. I asked nothing. I simply set his plate down and withdrew to another room. On the couch I wondered if paranoia had taken hold, if exhaustion or my own mind was inventing trouble.
Later I rose and checked his jacket pockets. Empty. That brought no peaceonly the realization that checking at all carried its own weight. Ordinary people leave others’ belongings alone.
I held back because thinking required space.
That evening Marko left for his shift. I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop, feigning focus. Near nine I texted Maja: “Can you talk?”
She rang three minutes later.
“What is it?”
I described the shoes, how he emerged from the bedroom, the claim he had been sleeping, and the camera.
Maja stayed quiet throughout. That patient listening was why I valued her above the restshe never cut in or shifted to her own stories.
“Are you certain?” she asked once I finished.
“No,” I admitted. “Not certain.”
“Then there you are.”
“But the shoes sat exactly like that. Toe to toe. Arranged. No one places shoes that way just to visit a friend for a talk.”
Maja waited a moment.
“It still proves nothing,” she said.
“I know.”
“You might be mistaken.”
“I know, Maja. I understand the possibility. Yet looking at those shoes I felt: I already know. Proof isn’t required. I simply know.”
“A feeling isn’t evidence.”
“I know.” I hesitated. “Still, sometimes a feeling cuts truer than evidence ever could.”
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know yet. Probably speak with him.”
“When?”
“Not today.”
We continued a while longer, filling the line with ordinary talk to delay ending the call. Before hanging up Maja added, “Don’t bottle it. If it hurts, come to me.” I agreed.
He arrived home around half past eleven. I lay in bed with a book. He glanced in, noted “still awake” as fact rather than question, then showered. Returning, he settled beside me and reached for his phone.
Words on the page blurred. I reread one line four times without grasping it.
“Ivana,” he said into the darkness.
“Yes?”
“Are you angry?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Truly?”
“Truly.”
He rolled onto his side. Minutes later his breathing leveledsleep or pretense.
I stared at the ceiling. White, with a narrow crack in the upper left corner from last autumn. Marko had said it needed filling. It never was.
Thirty-four years old. Eight years married. I recalled our first visit to this apartment, still bare with faded striped walls. My insistence on replacing the wallpaper before moving furniture. His laughter, calling it unimportant next to the sunny windows.
I remembered painting the bedroom together. Paint splattered on his temple as he worked. My laughter, his in return.
Our first real fight surfaced toohis mother, money. Three days without speech in the same rooms, unbearable. On the fourth he left my favorite tea on the table without comment. I said nothing either. We drank it, then began speaking, first guardedly, then freely.
All of it had existed. None of it had vanished.
Yet the shoes had appeared as well.
The following morning I rang the building management.
“Good morning,” I said. “I live at Ante Starčević Street 12, fourth floor. You repaired the entrance camera yesterday.”
“Yes,” the voice confirmed. “Has something occurred?”
“No. I simply want to confirmrecordings from the last day are retained?”
“They are. Fourteen days of storage.”
“Thank you.”
I replaced the receiver.
Then lifted it again and called Marko.
“Hello?” he answered at once.
“Hi. Where are you?”
“At work. Did something happen?”
“No,” I said. “Nothing. Listen, remember I mentioned the building camera yesterday?”
A brief pause, barely there. I registered it clearly, like a marked gap on tape.
“I remember.”
“Recordings stay for two weeks. I learned that just now.”
Extended silence, longer than needed for a simple reply.
“Understood,” he said eventually.
“Yes,” I said. “Understood.”
His breathing reached me through the linemeasured, deliberate. The sound of someone forcing even breaths.
“Ivana,” he began.
“Not now,” I cut in. “We’ll discuss it this evening. At home.”
I ended the call.
Several minutes passed with the phone still in my hand. Light rain drifted outside, more mist than downpour. Watching it, I realized the recording itself wasn’t necessary. What I needed was precisely that pause, that silence stretched beyond normal.
He returned early, before seven. I hadn’t started dinner. He set his bag down, removed his shoes, and came to the kitchen. I sat with tea.
He took the chair opposite. No warm-up questions, no easing injust sat and met my eyes.
We remained quiet perhaps three minutes. I tracked the time by shifts in his expression: first closed, then weary, then something harder to define.
“This has been happening for some time,” he said.
“How long?”
“Seven months.”
I nodded. Seven months placed it in February. February brought a visit to his parents for the holidays. Flowers arrived on March 8a large bunch of yellow tulips. I arranged them on the windowsill and watched them for days, vivid and full of life. Seven months.
“Who is she?”
He gave a name. I didn’t recognize it.
“Does she work at your place?”
“No. We met by accident.”
“By accident,” I echoed.
He stayed silent. Offered no explanations, hunted for no phrasessimply quiet, and the quiet carried more truth than speech could.
“Had you intended to tell me?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I considered it. Couldn’t find the way.”
“And now you can?”
“Now there’s no option.”
“The camera.”
He lifted his gaze.
“No,” he said. “Not only that. Camera or not… Ivana, I couldn’t keep going this way. I couldn’t manage it myself. Living beside you while knowing…”
“Yet you kept it up for seven months.”
“Yes.”
The quiet grew thick enough to hear the bathroom tap dripping. Long overdue for repair. A steady, small rhythm: drop, pause, drop.
“Do you want to go to her?”
He took time before answering. I studied his face, every line familiarwrinkles at the eyes that had formed three years earlier. I recalled him examining them in the mirror, joking about age while I laughed. Now those lines seemed new.
“I don’t know what I want,” he said quietly. “That’s honest. I’m not dodging. I truly don’t know.”
“A poor answer.”
“I know.”
“Marko.” I spoke his name slowly, testing its sound. “You see this isn’t merely ‘I don’t know’? It demands a response.”
“Yes. I do.”
“And?”
He focused on the table.
“I don’t want her,” he said. “It was something else. Nothing I could set against you. I’m not comparing. There it’s entirely different.”
“But you went there seven months.”
“Yes.”
“What made it worth that?”
He stayed quiet a long while.
“Easy,” he said at last. “It was simply easy. No duties, no weight. Meet, separate. No expectations either way. Like… air somewhere else.”
“And here breathing is difficult?”
“No. Here it’s real. And real always weighs more. My failing, not knowing how to carry it. Not yours.”
I stood, moved to the window, paused, returned. His eyes followed.
“Then this is what happens,” I said. “Today you go to Matej’s. Pack enough for a few days and leave. I need room to think.”
“Ivana…”
“I’m not sending you away for good. I’m asking for several days alone. Can you give me that?”
He nodded.
“All right,” he said.
He rose and entered the bedroom. I heard the closet open, careful packing. He kept the sounds soft. Soon he reappeared with a small bag.
“Ivana.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at him. The regret showed plainly, not performed.
“I know,” I said. “Go.”
Three days passed alone.
No calls to him, Maja, or my mother. Work, return, cook for one. Strange after years of portions for two or three on weekends. Half the pasta now went to waste.
The first day I cleanedfloors, dust, discarding items long neglected. Not from anger or erasure, simply to occupy my hands.
That evening I rang my mother. Not to confess, only to hear her. She spoke of the garden, neighbors, a television program. Her voice carried its usual warmth and tiredness. Certain things remain fixed.
The second day I called management again.
“May I obtain the camera recording?”
“For what purpose?”
“I need to view yesterday’s footage. A personal matter.”
They explained recordings release only with formal request and for specific reasons theft, damage, similar cases. Casual viewing was not allowed.
I thanked them and set the phone down.
The recording no longer mattered. His reaction the day I mentioned the camera on the phone had given me what I soughtthe extended pause, the overly controlled breathing.
I had needed the truth. I had it.
On the third day I understood the decision concerned myself, not him. Not what he had done or how it started, but what I wanted.
Coffee by the window brought the familiar view: street, trees, edge of the playground. So known, so routine. If he vanished entirely tomorrow, what of this shared familiarity would remain? What would be lost?
Eight years. Not mere time together, but something builtapartment, daily paths, Friday films, comfortable silence. He knows mornings leave me wordless for the first half hour. I know large stores disorient him and spark self-irritation. Small details gathered slowly, forming unseen ground.
Could it endure once fractured? Or did it resemble a wall crackplastered over yet always present beneath?
I didn’t know. Yet I saw I wanted to discover.
On the fourth day a message arrived: “May I come by?”
I answered: “Yes.”
He arrived that evening carrying bread and milk, as though returning from errands rather than absence. I let it pass. We sat with tea at the kitchen table, and it struck me how much of our life had unfolded here.
“Have you decided?” he asked.
“Almost.”
“And?”
I regarded my hands. The ring caught lamplight.
“I need to know one thing,” I said. “Was she real to you? Or something you can’t clearly define even now?”
He remained silent longer than thought or word choice required. I saw him reaching for honesty.
“No,” he said finally. “Not real. It was… an escape. From what, I’m unsure. From myself, perhaps. There everything stayed simple. No responsibility, nothing serious. Just easy.”
“And here it’s heavy?”
“Here it’s real. And real always carries more weight. My inability to manage it, not any fault of yours.”
I refilled my cup. My hands stayed steady, surprising me.
“Have you ended it with her?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Two days ago.”
“Before I asked you to come.”
“Yes.”
That detail mattered. I couldn’t yet say why, but it did. He hadn’t stopped because I summoned him. He had chosen to stop beforehand.
“Good,” I said.
“Does that mean…”
“It means we can attempt this. Not immediately. Not pretending nothing occurred that can’t happen, and I need you to accept it. But attempt.”
He watched me. His expression held no simple relief, something more layered. As though he grasped only now what stood to be lost, fully present.
“I need something from you,” I went on.
“Whatever you ask.”
“Not whatever. Specifically: we go to a family psychologist. More than once. Are you prepared?”
“Yes.”
“You answered without pause.”
“I’m prepared, Ivana. I mean it. Three days gave me time to think. I’ve understood several things.”
“Such as?”
He studied his hands before meeting my eyes.
“That I acted not from anything lacking here, but from something lacking in me. An ability to face difficulty, to stay with what is real. I fled toward ease. Calling it by name, it’s cowardice.”
I said nothing. He continued.
“I must sort this for myself. Not to persuade you. Because if I don’t, it may happen again. Perhaps not with her, perhaps something else. But it will repeat.”
That stood as the most direct statement he had made.
“Good,” I said once more.
We lingered. Talk shifted graduallystill cautious, yet away from the central matter. He mentioned work; I spoke of a client. Simple exchanges after prolonged quiet.
“One more thing,” I said as he prepared to rise.
“Yes?”
“The bathroom tap. Dripping two weeks now. Fix it tomorrow.”
He regarded me briefly. A small movement touched the corner of his mouthnot quite a smile, yet close.
“Understood,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
Vesna caught me by the lift on Friday.
“Heard?” she asked with the same gravity as the week before. “The camera’s off again! Technical trouble, they say. Second time this month. Unacceptable! I contacted managementthey promise repair by week’s end. We know how that goes.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Unacceptable.”
The lift arrived. I entered and pressed four.
“Have you noted the dispatcher’s number?” Vesna called through the closing doors. “I have it if you need.”
Doors shut.
My reflection in the metal showed blurred and faint, typical of older lifts. Thirty-four, silver ring, coat from the third shelf. Tired features, somewhat drawn from recent days. An ordinary face.
The camera had functioned for precisely one day.
One day from eight years. One day from nearly three thousand shared in one apartment, one building, one roof.
One day proved sufficient.
The lift halted at the fourth floor. Doors parted. I stepped out.
The apartment sat quietMarko still at his shift. Coat off, kettle on, fridge open. Shelves held bread, milk, a container. Ordinary fridge. Ordinary kitchen. Ordinary apartment.
Ordinary life carrying a visible crack. Not newly formed, simply revealed.
Water in the mug, and the thought that this is often how matters stand. Neither fully well nor fully ended, but something between requiring one to remain and examine. No simple replies, yet honest questions.
And at times, honest replies.
The bathroom tap had stopped dripping. Marko had repaired it that morning as promised.
That, too, carried meaning.
