On Sundays Mirna checked the inn's receipts while her husband Alen went to collect fresh cheese. She was used to coffee stains and incorrect sums. What struck her as odd was the handwriting on a bill for two breakfasts in a room that had served as a storeroom the previous week. She recognized Alen's seven, crossed twice, just as on his shopping notes.
She asked who had slept among the boxes of napkins. He said he had put up a supplier whose car had broken down. Mirna might have believed him if she had not found the same receipt a few days later, bearing a different date. She called their accountant about the records without mentioning her marriage. All their suppliers, she learned, sent invoices electronically. Alen had entered these papers as cash expenses.
She did not open his phone. She took out statements for the business account they both had access to and compared them with bookings. For three months he had been paying for an apartment across town. When she placed the papers before him, he first claimed it was business space. Then he sat down and admitted that he met a woman there with whom he had resumed an old relationship.
Mirna poured a glass of water but did not drink it. She asked whether the woman knew about the inn. She did, he said, but believed they had separated long ago. That sentence hurt more than the apartment's address. For months Mirna had served guests as half of a contented couple while elsewhere she had already been declared his former wife.
Alen offered to end everything and repay the money immediately. "We'll settle the money before we discuss us," she said. She arranged a meeting with the accountant and asked for the personal expenses to be separated out. She wanted neither to close the inn nor to keep performing for guests. Alen temporarily handled supplies outside working hours and moved in with his brother, agreeing to give every employee the same brief explanation.
The woman from the apartment appeared one Wednesday. Her name was Lejla, and she carried an envelope containing a key. Mirna offered her a chair in the empty dining room. They did not compare promises or try to establish which had been more deceived. Lejla said she had ended the relationship. Mirna replied that she was still thinking about her marriage. Both had the right to finish the conversation without a shared plan.
A month later Alen repaid the last of the money. Mirna signed a receipt and left another document in her folder, a proposal to separate their business interests. She did not hand it to him in anger. She had spent weeks calculating what she could manage alone. The following morning she served breakfast to two cyclists, recorded the exact number of eggs, and for the first time in a long while did not listen for a car outside.