Chapter 2 - The Flight That Never Existed
Maria did not call her husband.
She did not call her mother, either.
She sat alone at the kitchen table with the phone in her hand, staring at the enlarged photograph until the colored pixels blurred together. The man in the background had no face, but she knew the angle of his shoulders. She knew the faded dragon tattoo. She knew the blue swim shorts because she had wrapped them herself at midnight while Grigori slept upstairs.
Eleven years of marriage had taught her the rhythm of his body.
It had also taught her the rhythm of his lies.
The front door opened at seven forty-five that evening.
Maria’s heart leaped before logic could stop it.
For one wild second, she thought Grigori had returned. She imagined him stepping into the apartment, suitcase in hand, ready to explain why a man who looked exactly like him had appeared behind Valentina’s beach chair in Turkey.
But it was only Lena, Maria’s younger sister, carrying two grocery bags and complaining about the elevator.
“You look terrible,” Lena said as soon as she entered.
“Thank you.”
“I mean frightened, not ugly.”
Maria locked her phone and turned it facedown on the table.
Lena noticed.
She always noticed.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s the face you made when Dad’s doctor called us into the hallway.”
“Don’t.”
Lena slowly set the bags down.
Their father had been dead for six years, but his absence remained in the family like a locked room no one entered. Valentina rarely spoke about him. Maria had learned not to ask.
Lena pulled out the chair across from her.
“Where’s Grigori?”
“Novosibirsk.”
“That’s what Mom said.”
Maria looked up sharply.
“When did Mom say that?”
“This morning. I asked whether you were lonely while he was away. She said he was buried in meetings.”
Maria’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
Valentina was supposed to be lying beside a pool in Turkey. Why was she discussing Grigori’s work schedule with Lena?
“Did she say anything else?”
“No.” Lena studied her. “Why are you asking like a detective?”
Maria reached for her phone.
She opened the photograph again and slid it across the table.
At first, Lena smiled at their mother posing beside a plate of fruit. Then Maria pointed to the man at the edge of the frame.
Lena leaned closer.
Her smile vanished.
“No.”
“You see it.”
“It could be anyone.”
“Look at the shoulder.”
“A lot of men have tattoos.”
“Look at the shorts.”
“A lot of men have blue shorts.”
“The gym bag is in another picture.”
Maria swiped.
The second image showed the hotel lobby. Valentina stood beneath a chandelier with a resort employee. Behind a decorative plant sat a black athletic bag with a red stitched logo. Grigori had carried that bag to the gym every Saturday for four years.
Lena swallowed.
“Call him.”
“And say what? ‘Are you sleeping with our mother?’”
Lena recoiled. “Maria.”
“What else am I supposed to think?”
“That there’s an explanation.”
“Then why did he lie about where he was going?”
“You don’t know that he lied.”
“I know where he said he was.”
“Maybe he changed flights. Maybe he had a meeting in Turkey.”
“Then why hide?”
Maria heard the desperation in her own voice and hated it. She stood and walked to the window, wrapping her arms around herself.
Below them, evening traffic crawled through the city. People crossed intersections carrying flowers, briefcases, children, groceries. Ordinary lives moved forward while hers had stopped inside a photograph.
Lena spoke carefully.
“Check the airline account.”
Maria turned.
“You booked most of his trips, didn’t you?”
Not anymore. In the first years of their marriage, Grigori had asked her to organize everything. Later, when his consulting work grew, he began using a company assistant.
Still, they shared a loyalty account.
Maria opened the airline application and entered the password.
No flight to Novosibirsk appeared.
She refreshed the screen.
Nothing.
Her breathing changed.
“Maybe his company used another airline,” Lena offered.
Maria checked the shared calendar. Grigori’s travel entry said: NOVOSIBIRSK—MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY. Underneath was a flight number.
She searched it.
The flight existed.
But Grigori’s name did not appear in their booking history, and the credit card they used for travel showed no charge.
Instead, three weeks earlier, there was a payment to a private travel agency.
$4,860.
Maria stared at the amount.
“What was that?” Lena asked.
“I don’t know.”
She opened the transaction details. The merchant name was unfamiliar, but a reservation code appeared in the description.
Maria copied it into the travel agency website.
The page asked for the traveler’s last name.
She typed Volkov.
A booking appeared.
Two round-trip business-class tickets to Antalya.
Grigori Volkov.
Valentina Sokolova.
The room went silent.
Lena stood so quickly her chair scraped the floor.
“No,” she whispered.
Maria could not feel her hands.
The tickets had been purchased together. The seats were beside each other.
Departure: three days ago.
Return: Sunday evening.
“This doesn’t prove an affair,” Lena said, but her voice had lost all conviction.
Maria scrolled farther.
One hotel reservation.
A sea-view suite.
Two guests.
Her mother and her husband.
Maria closed the laptop.
The sound was small, almost polite.
Then she swept a ceramic bowl from the table.
It shattered against the wall.
Lena flinched.
Maria stood frozen, staring at the broken pieces.
“I’m sorry,” she said automatically.
“For the bowl?”
“For everything.”
Lena crossed the room and gripped her shoulders.
“You did not cause this.”
“We don’t know what ‘this’ is.”
“Then we find out.”
Maria laughed once, a hollow sound.
“How? Call Mom and ask whether she packed my husband beside her sunscreen?”
“Maybe.”
“No.”
Maria stepped away.
“If I call, they’ll prepare a story. They’ve had weeks to prepare one already.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
Maria looked at the screen again.
The return flight was four days away.
Four days during which Valentina believed her daughter remained safely at home, trusting both of them.
Maria opened the hotel’s website.
“We go there.”
Lena stared at her.
“To Turkey?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I have vacation days.”
“You hate flying.”
“I hate being lied to more.”
Lena paced between the kitchen and living room.
“This is insane. You’ll arrive angry, confront them in a hotel lobby, and then what?”
“I’m not confronting anyone.”
“That’s worse.”
“I’m going to watch.”
“Maria—”
“I need the truth before they give me the version designed to protect them.”
Her phone buzzed on the table.
Both women looked down.
GRIGORI.
Maria’s chest tightened.
The message read:
Long day. Just got back from dinner with the regional team. Signal is terrible. Miss you.
Attached was a photograph of a snowy industrial building at night.
Lena picked up the phone.
“He sent proof.”
Maria enlarged the image.
Something about it felt wrong. The snow looked gray and old. There were no people, no cars, no signs of current activity.
She saved the picture and performed a reverse image search.
The exact photograph appeared on an engineering company’s public website.
Uploaded two years earlier.
Maria stared at it until anger replaced the shock.
“He didn’t even take the picture.”
Lena covered her mouth.
Another message arrived.
Going to sleep early. Love you.
Maria typed slowly.
Love you too. Be safe.
Lena looked horrified.
“How can you write that?”
“Because I want him comfortable.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“I’m scaring myself.”
Maria opened the hotel booking page. A standard room was available on the same floor as Valentina’s suite.
She entered her payment information.
Lena placed one hand over the laptop.
“Wait.”
“For what?”
“For you to breathe.”
“I’ve been breathing for eleven years while everyone else decided what I was allowed to know.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither is this.”
Lena lowered her voice.
“What will you do if it’s true?”
Maria understood the real question.
What would she do if her mother had betrayed her with her husband?
Would she scream? Walk away? Expose them publicly? Destroy every photograph in the family albums? Tell relatives? Tell friends? Tell the world?
She did not know.
That frightened her more than the evidence.
“I’ll survive,” she said.
Lena’s eyes filled.
“You shouldn’t have to.”
Maria booked the room.
The confirmation appeared instantly.
The next morning, she told her office she had a family emergency. That part, at least, was true.
She packed one suitcase. Dark clothes. Comfortable shoes. A scarf and sunglasses. Nothing that felt like vacation.
Lena insisted on going with her, but Maria refused.
“If Mom sees both of us disappear, she’ll know.”
“Then let me tell her I’m sick.”
“No. Stay here. Answer normally. Keep them calm.”
“You sound like you’re planning a police operation.”
“I’m planning not to be made a fool again.”
Before leaving, Maria searched Grigori’s desk.
She hated herself for it.
She hated him more for making it necessary.
Inside the bottom drawer, beneath old contracts, she found a second phone charger. No second phone. A receipt from a jewelry store dated two weeks earlier. A handwritten note with the name “Elena” and the number 814.
Her stomach dropped.
Elena was not Valentina.
She photographed the note and returned everything exactly as she had found it.
At the airport, Maria sat near the departure gate while families laughed around her. Honeymooners took photographs. Children pressed their faces to the glass. An elderly couple shared a sandwich.
Maria wondered how many betrayals passed unnoticed through airports every day.
Her phone rang.
Valentina.
Maria watched it vibrate.
Then she answered.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Darling! Did you see today’s pictures?”
“I did.”
“Isn’t the water incredible?”
“Beautiful.”
“You sound tired.”
“Work.”
“You push yourself too hard.”
Maria closed her eyes.
In the background of the call, she heard music, wind, and a man’s voice.
Only two words.
But she knew that voice.
“Valentina, wait.”
Grigori.
Her mother stopped speaking.
For half a second, neither woman breathed.
Then Valentina laughed too loudly.
“Someone near the pool is calling his wife. These tourists are so noisy.”
Maria stared straight ahead.
“Of course.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”
Maria looked at the boarding announcement flashing above the gate.
“Yes, Mom.”
The lie came easily now.
Perhaps that was what betrayal did. It taught the innocent person the language of the guilty.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” Valentina said.
“I may be busy.”
“With what?”
Maria’s pulse quickened.
“Nothing important.”
After they disconnected, Maria boarded the plane.
She did not cry during takeoff.
She did not cry when the city disappeared beneath the clouds.
She did not cry during the long flight, even when Grigori sent another message claiming he was driving to a remote construction site.
She only looked at the note she had photographed.
Elena.
When Maria arrived at the resort, the sun was setting over the Mediterranean. The lobby glowed with amber light. Staff members greeted her with practiced warmth. Couples walked past holding hands.
She kept her sunglasses on.
At reception, the clerk smiled.
“Welcome. May I have your passport?”
Maria handed it over.
As the clerk typed, Maria glanced across the lobby.
A familiar black gym bag sat beside a cream sofa.
The red logo faced her like an accusation.
Then the elevator doors opened.
Grigori stepped out.
He was wearing a white linen shirt, tan trousers, and the watch Maria had given him for their tenth anniversary.
Beside him walked a woman in a red dress.
She was younger than Valentina.
Much younger.
Grigori leaned close and said something that made her laugh.
Then he placed his hand against the small of her back.
Maria stopped breathing.
The woman turned toward the reception desk.
For one terrifying moment, Maria thought she had been seen.
But the woman’s gaze passed over her.
Grigori and the stranger walked toward the terrace.
The receptionist slid a key card across the counter.
“Room 812,” she said. “Your room is ready.”
Maria looked at the elevator.
Elena’s room was 814.
May you like
Her room was next door.
She picked up her suitcase and whispered, “Perfect.”
