The information came through a colleague, then his wife, and finally to Nadina's sister. The bus her husband was supposedly traveling on had been in a serious accident. His name appeared among the unconfirmed reports. Her sister came in person, pale, carrying a phone that would not stop ringing. No official service had confirmed the news.
Nadina called her husband several times. His phone was unreachable. She sat on the hallway floor because the chair seemed too far away. She remembered being angry the previous evening because he had again decided where they would spend their vacation without discussing it with her. Now that anger seemed both trivial and terrible.
While her sister checked the information, Nadina went into the bedroom and opened the window. In the street, someone was carrying plants into a flower shop. A woman in a red jacket bought a parking ticket. Everything continued, almost indecently normal. Nadina cried, then stopped, not knowing how to fill the next minute.
Then a thought came that flooded her with shame: she could finish the degree she had postponed. Not because her husband had explicitly forbidden it, but because all their plans eventually became his. For his work, it was time to move. For his tiredness, it was time to be quiet. For her, they always had to wait for a better moment.
She did not wish him dead. She wished her life did not have to depend on his absence. She recognized the difference clearly, before she could forgive herself for thinking at all. She found her old university record book in a drawer and put it on the bed beside the tissues.
Fifty minutes after the first call, her sister knocked. Her husband was alive. He had taken a later bus, and his phone battery had died. Nadina heard him over the speaker, puzzled by the panic. She began trembling with relief. She asked her sister to step out for a moment and asked him to stay on the line.
She did not tell him every thought at once. She said she loved him, had been terrified and needed to talk when he arrived. That evening, she held him for a long time. Then she took out the record book. At first, he suggested postponing the discussion until they had both calmed down. Nadina looked at him and said postponement was precisely what she wanted to discuss.
Their marriage neither ended that night nor improved by itself. The following week, Nadina submitted an application to resume her studies. When asked for a contact number, she wrote her own. Afterward, she called her husband to tell him how it had gone, not to check whether she was allowed to continue.