I came home early from a business trip and found the neighbor in my bedroom. I didn’t say a word. One phone call was all it took to make both of them start begging. My name is Czesław, and for over thirty years I’ve been in the business of appraising property—apartments, houses, plots, warehouses, old tenement buildings whose owners are convinced they’re sitting on treasure, even when the plaster is falling off the walls and the roof remembers better days.
People talk about sentimental value. For me, sentiment was never an argument. What mattered were the documents, the technical condition, the location, the land registry, access to the road, the utilities—everything that could be verified in black and white. I always believed that if you looked closely enough at the papers, sooner or later you’d find the truth.
Now I know that not every truth makes it into the files. I liked order. Nothing sat on my desk that wasn’t needed. Pens stood in one cup, documents in gray folders, and every report had its place.
Even my coffee mug had a permanent spot on the right side of the computer, on the same coaster. Bożena used to laugh about it. “Czesiu, you’d put your own slippers into the fixed-asset register,” she’d say. I laughed along with her, though I secretly believed that people like me were the reason the world hadn’t fallen apart yet.
On Wednesday morning, I left Gdańsk for Wrocław. The bank had commissioned me to appraise a warehouse complex and the adjacent plot. A big deal, a big loan, a lot of paperwork. I wasn’t due back until Friday evening.
Bożena saw me off at the door in her robe, her hair pinned up loosely. “Call me when you get there,” she said. “I will. ”
“And don’t sit over your papers all night.
”
“You know me. ”
She smiled then, but something in it was off. Pale, tired. I thought she might have another headache or a hard day at the clinic.
I kissed her on the cheek and left. Everything in Wrocław went wrong from the start. The bank representative was late, the facility manager couldn’t find the keys to one of the halls, and on Thursday morning it turned out the co-owner of the plot hadn’t submitted the current land registry documents. Without them, the whole appraisal was meaningless.
The meeting was postponed to the following week. I could have stayed at the hotel until Friday. The room was paid for, and my return train wasn’t until the next day. But suddenly I thought about home, about Bożena, about how long it had been since I’d surprised her.
I bought a ticket for an earlier train and didn’t call. I wanted to see her face when I walked through the door. The trip dragged on miserably. Wet fields, bare trees, and gray towns slid past the window.
November looks the same everywhere in Poland; only the wind near the sea is more brazen. I arrived at Gdańsk Główny a few minutes after three. At the bakery by the hall, I bought a cheesecake with crumble topping, the one Bożena loved most. The whole box smelled of vanilla and butter.
I was supposed to be home within half an hour. But at the gate, something felt wrong. Not exactly anxiety—more like a small prick, the kind you get when everything in a report checks out, but one number looks suspicious. Roman’s car was parked in the courtyard.
Dark, big, polished as if it had just left the showroom. Roman lived one floor up. I’d known him for years. We’d talked about the leaking roof, the maintenance fund, the association bills.
I figured he must have come about something—another leak, a new settlement. I climbed the stairs. The building smelled of damp, fried onions, and someone’s strong cigarette. I took out my key, but the door wasn’t locked with both locks, only one.
Bożena always turned both twice. I opened it quietly. Men’s shoes lay in the hallway. Not mine.
Large, leather, carefully polished. Roman’s jacket hung on the hook. The cheesecake suddenly felt heavy. I stood still for a moment, trying to find a reasonable explanation.
Maybe he’d come to check the radiator. Maybe Bożena wasn’t feeling well. Then I heard water running somewhere in the bathroom off the bedroom. And then Bożena’s laugh.
Low, soft, free. She never laughed that way with me. My heart pounded, but my legs carried me down the hall on their own. The bedroom door was ajar.
Steam and the scent of lavender bath oil drifted out. I looked in. Bożena was sitting in the bathtub next to Roman. Their shoulders touched.
He held a glass of wine; she rested her head against his. For a few seconds, I felt nothing at all—no anger, no pain, not even surprise. Just cold. I stepped back silently, pulled the bedroom door closed, took an old key from the drawer, and slipped it into the lock.
I turned it once, then twice. The metal clicked in the silence like a gunshot. The laughter stopped instantly. Someone moved sharply in the water.
“Czesław,” Bożena said. Her voice trembled. “Is that you? ”
I didn’t answer.
I stood in the hallway, the key still in my hand. Behind the bedroom door, the silence was sudden, as if someone had cut off the air. “Czesław,” she repeated. “Please open.
”
Roman spoke right after her, calm, almost matter-of-fact. “Czesiek, open the door, we’ll talk. ”
I didn’t move. “Come on, we’re adults,” he went on.
“Let’s not make a circus. Open up and we’ll settle this like men. ”
Like men. That phrase hit me harder than the sight of their bare shoulders.
The man who sat in my bathtub with my wife, drinking my wine, drying off with my towels, now wanted to talk to me like a man. I pressed my hand against the wall. The plaster was cool and rough. “Czesiu, it’s not what you think,” Bożena said.
I almost laughed. I just didn’t know what else it could possibly look like. “Open the door! ” Roman raised his voice.
“You can’t lock us in here. This is illegal. ”
He started pounding on the door, lightly at first, then harder. The old wood didn’t even budge.
“Czesław, please,” Bożena’s voice broke. “I’ll explain everything. ”
I turned and walked to the kitchen. I was still carrying the cheesecake under my arm.
I set it on the table. Through the transparent window, I could see the crumble and the pale layer of cheese. An hour earlier, I’d imagined Bożena making tea, cutting the cake, telling me I shouldn’t have spent the money. I lifted the lid.
The smell of vanilla was so sweet it made me sick. I threw the whole box into the trash. Without tasting it, without hesitation. The cake hit the bottom of the bin softly, almost soundlessly.
From the bedroom came the sound of Bożena crying. Roman whispered something to her. Then he started yanking at the handle again. I took out my phone and found Grażyna’s number.
I’d known her for years. We passed each other on the stairs, talked about the weather, rent hikes, pharmacy lines. A calm woman, always a little tired. She answered after a few rings.
“Hello,” she said. I could hear rustling paper bags in the background and someone asking about painkillers. “Grażyna, it’s Czesław. ”
“Czesław, has something happened?
”
“Come to me right now. ”
She was silent. “Is it about Roman? ” she finally asked.
I didn’t need to say anything more. “Yes. ”
A long silence. Then: “I’ll be there in ten minutes.
”
She didn’t ask what had happened. She didn’t say it was impossible. Her voice was calm, almost empty. That’s when I understood: she knew.
Maybe not everything, maybe not with proof, but she’d been living with the same suspicion that had hit me only minutes before. I sat down at the table. Roman started shouting again. “Czesiek, open the damn door!
We can explain this! ”
Bożena was sobbing loudly now. “Please don’t call anyone. Czesiu, do you hear me?
Don’t do this. ”
It was too late. After about fifteen minutes, I heard the front door open. Grażyna had her own key to our apartment for emergencies.
Years back, we’d traded spare sets as neighbors. She walked into the kitchen in her white pharmacy coat under a winter jacket, a name badge on her chest. Her face was pale, but her eyes were dry. “Where are they?
” she asked. I pointed toward the bedroom. She walked over to the door and stared at the lock for a moment. “Open it,” she said.
There was no plea in her voice, no fear. I turned the key. Roman stood in the middle of the room in my burgundy bathrobe. It was too short.
The sleeves ended at his wrists, and his bare shins stuck out underneath. He looked pathetic. Bożena sat on the edge of the bed wrapped in a sheet, wet hair stuck to her cheeks. She didn’t look at me.
Grażyna stepped inside. Roman raised his hands. “Grażynka, calm down. This really isn’t…”
He didn’t finish.
She slapped him across the face, open-handed. Loud and short. “Get dressed,” she said. “Listen, let’s just–”
“I said, get dressed.
”
Roman started gathering his clothes from the floor, fast and clumsy, trying to hold the bathrobe together. Grażyna watched him in silence. When he was ready, she pointed to the door. “Home.
”
They passed me in the hallway. Roman didn’t look up. Grażyna paused for a second. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
Then they left. I was alone with Bożena. For a moment, neither of us spoke. “I felt lonely,” she finally said.
“You were never there. Work, trips, reports. You came home exhausted and didn’t even notice I was trying to talk to you. ”
I looked at her without a word.
“Roman listened to me,” she went on. “With him, I felt alive again. I didn’t plan for it to go this far. ”
“How long?
” I asked. Bożena gripped the sheet. “Czesiu…”
“How long? ”
She looked away.
That was all I needed. I didn’t need a date. Her silence said more than any answer. “You have one hour,” I announced.
She stared at me in disbelief. “For what? ”
“Pack your essentials. I’ll call you a taxi.
”
“You’re throwing me out? ”
“I’m asking you to leave. ”
The taxi cost 65 złoty. The driver arrived early and added 20 złoty for waiting time.
Bożena packed in the bedroom while I sat in the kitchen, listening to her open drawers, move hangers, lock a suitcase. After less than an hour, she came out to the hall. The suitcase rolled across the old parquet, its wheels clicking on every gap between the planks. She stopped at the door, as if waiting for me to stop her.
I didn’t. The door closed quietly, and for the first time in years, I was completely alone in the apartment. For a few minutes, I stood in the hallway staring at the closed door. The apartment was so quiet I could hear the clock ticking in the living room and the drip of water from the bathroom tap.
That silence used to mean peace. Now it felt foreign, heavy, sitting on my chest and refusing to let me breathe. I went back to the kitchen. The trash bin with the thrown-out cheesecake stood under the sink.
My phone lay on the table. It was just past eight. I thought of Iwona. My older daughter had always been sensible, practical, the kind who checks the contract terms first and then asks if everyone likes the apartment.
She worked in a bank handling mortgages and spoke about life in the same language I did: risk, security, capacity, consequences. I dialed her number. She answered almost immediately. “Dad, are you all right?
” There was a TV and footsteps in the background. “Bożena has left,” I said. She was quiet for a moment. “Did you have a fight?
”
“We’re getting a divorce. ”
This time the silence lasted longer. No surprise, no sharp intake of breath, no question about what happened. Just a quiet, “Oh God.
” Something in me tightened. “Why aren’t you asking what happened? ”
“Dad…”
“Iwona, did you know? ”
She sighed.
That single sigh was enough to send a chill down my neck. “I didn’t know for sure. ”
I sat down slowly at the table. “What does that mean—you didn’t know for sure?
”
“I saw Mom with Roman a few months ago, at the mall. They were walking together, holding hands, then sat in a café. ”
“And you didn’t tell me? ”
“There could have been an explanation.
”
“Like what? ”
“I don’t know. Maybe they met by chance. Maybe they were discussing something about the building association.
”
I laughed shortly, without joy. “Of course. They were probably discussing the leaking roof, holding hands. ”
“Dad, please.
Paulina knew too. ”
Iwona went silent again. My fingers tightened around the phone. “Answer me.
”
“She noticed Mom was always guarding her phone. Took it even into the bathroom. Whenever someone entered the room, she’d turn the screen off. ”
I closed my eyes.
My daughters had talked about this between themselves, analyzed their own mother’s behavior, collected small clues, and wondered whether their father knew he was being cheated on. “How long? ” I asked. “Since the summer.
”
Since the summer. For months, we’d all sat at the same table. We ate dinner, talked about work, bills, the bathroom renovation. They looked at me, and neither of them said a single word.
“We were afraid,” Iwona explained. “We didn’t know what to do. ”
“Were you afraid for the family, or for me? ”
“Both.
Dad, you always have to have everything under control. We were afraid news like that would break you. ”
What broke me was that answer. Not Bożena’s betrayal, not Roman in my bathrobe.
At that moment, what hurt most was that my own children saw me as a fragile old man who needed the truth measured out like a strong medicine. “I understand,” I said. “Dad, don’t hang up. I’ll come–”
“No.
You shouldn’t be alone right now. ”
“I’ve been alone for a long time. No one just told me. ”
I pressed the red icon.
For the next hour, I walked through the apartment. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I opened cabinets, straightened chairs, stacked newspapers. Everything was in its place, and yet the whole apartment felt false.
After ten, the doorbell rang. Grażyna stood there, still smelling of hand cream and medicine. She was holding a thick blue folder. “Can I come in?
”
I invited her to the kitchen. She sat across from me and put the folder on the table. “I suspected something for months,” she said. “At first I thought I was imagining it.
Then I started checking. ”
She opened the folder. Inside were call logs, bank transfer confirmations, card payments, hotel bookings, restaurant reservations. “Roman left his email open once,” she explained.
“Later I found access to our shared account. I didn’t tell him I knew. I wanted to be sure. ”
I flipped through page after page.
Dates went back nearly a year. Sopot, Toruń, Poznań. Hotels, dinners, gifts, trips. Bożena had paid from our joint account, sometimes by card, sometimes by transfer.
Grażyna slid a summary toward me. “I counted. Around 36,000 złoty. ”
I stared at the number.
36,000. That was a good kitchen renovation. Enough to save for a quiet year of retirement. They had spent it on their secret.
Among the documents were several printed messages. I read them slowly. Bożena wrote that with me she felt like she was in an office, that I was cold, boring, predictable. That I could appraise an apartment, a car, maybe even my own children if someone gave me the right form.
The longest I stared at one sentence: “He doesn’t live. He only measures everything. ”
I didn’t recognize the woman who’d written that. Or maybe I’d known her all my life but never really listened.
I closed the folder. Grażyna watched me carefully. “What will you do now? ”
I ran my hand over the smooth cover.
I didn’t want to shout. I didn’t want to break plates or call Bożena with questions I already knew the answers to. Instead, I felt something familiar. Order.
“First, I’ll check the accounts,” I said. “Then the apartment documents, savings, all our joint obligations. ”
Grażyna nodded slightly. “So, divorce.
”
“Yes. ”
I stood, opened a drawer, took out a clean notebook, and laid it before me. On the first page, I wrote a single word: assets. I wasn’t planning a family row.
It was going to be a well-prepared proceeding. The next morning, I called Jerzy. I’d known him for over twenty years. He was a legal counsel specializing in family matters.
He often joked that after so many divorces, he’d stopped believing in marriage as an institution. He said people came to him not for justice, but for confirmation that they’d suffered more than the other side. He saw me the same day. His office was in an old tenement near central Gdańsk.
A ficus in the waiting room looked like it had been through a bitter divorce too, and the wall clock was exactly seven minutes slow. Jerzy came out to get me personally. “You look terrible,” he said by way of greeting. “Thank you.
”
“That wasn’t a compliment. ”
In his office, it smelled of coffee and paper. I sat across from his desk and placed Grażyna’s blue folder and my notebook in front of him. Jerzy didn’t ask unnecessary questions.
He looked through a few printouts, raised his eyebrows, then peered at me over his glasses. “The neighbor. ”
“The neighbor. ”
“Long?
”
“Almost a year. ”
“Classic,” he muttered. “The worst things always happen closest to home. A man looks for danger somewhere far away, and it borrows his drill.
”
I didn’t feel like joking. “I want a divorce. ”
“That I understand. The question is: what do you expect?
”
I opened my notebook. “The apartment stays mine. The house in Kaszuby too. The car, mine.
We split the savings so she gets as little as possible. The jewelry can stay hers. I don’t care. ”
Jerzy leaned back in his chair.
“So you want to take everything? ”
“I want to keep what I worked for. ”
“You both worked. She spent our money on hotels with Roman.
”
“That might matter for accounting some expenses, but it doesn’t mean the court will erase thirty years of marriage with an eraser. ”
I clenched my jaw. Jerzy took a sheet of paper and started making notes. “Fine, let’s start with the details.
Apartment in Gdańsk, Wrzeszcz, about 1. 2 million. When was it bought? ”
“Not bought.
It belonged to my parents. After their death, it passed to me. ”
“Before or after the marriage? ”
“Partially before.
Inheritance proceedings dragged on past the wedding. ”
“We need to check that thoroughly. Inheritance deed, land registry. Dates, shares.
And renovations? ”
“There were two big ones. Electrical, bathroom, windows, floors. ”
“What money?
”
“Joint. ”
Jerzy nodded. “And here’s where the problem begins. Even if the property is mostly yours, Bożena can demand settlement of contributions from joint assets.
How much? Without documents, I can’t say. Receipts, transfers, contracts with crews—everything needs to be reconstructed. ”
He noted another item.
“House in Kaszuby, about 480,000. Bought during the marriage? ”
“Yes. So it’s joint.
”
“I put in most of the money. ”
“If it was from earnings during the marriage, it doesn’t matter who made the transfer. ”
That sentence irritated me. “Car, 90,000.
Is that also joint? ”
“Owned for three years. Joint. ”
“Savings, about 340,000.
Partly joint accounts, the rest in term deposits. ”
Jerzy wrote down the sum and looked at me. “Joint accounts, partly. The rest in deposits.
”
“Bożena’s jewelry. About 45,000. If she received it as gifts, it could be her personal property. ”
“And my watch collection?
”
“Value, roughly 70,000. Where did you get them? ”
“Some inherited from my father, some bought over the years. ”
“The inherited ones are yours.
The rest depends on the source of funds. ”
After an hour, a list of our shared existence lay on his desk, converted into amounts: apartment, house, car, accounts, watches, jewelry. Thirty years of life fit onto two pages. “I want her to get nothing,” I said.
Jerzy put down his pen. “Czesław, betrayal doesn’t mean confiscation of property. She spent 36,000 on a lover. We’ll analyze that, but the court won’t punish her by taking everything.
”
“Then where’s the justice? ”
“Courts are rarely about justice in the sense people understand it. They’re about regulations, evidence, settlements. ”
He stood, walked to the window, and stared at the street.
“I’ll tell you something you don’t want to hear. Right now, you’re not fighting over property. You want her to feel the same pain you feel. Maybe she deserves it.
But that’s not justice. That’s revenge. ”
I said nothing. When I left his office, Paulina called.
I answered on the third ring. “Dad, Mom has nowhere to stay,” she said without greeting. “She’s at Aunt’s in a two-room apartment, sleeping on a pull-out chair. ”
“That was her choice.
”
“How can you say that? ”
“Very easily. ”
“She’s devastated. She’s ashamed to leave the house.
She barely eats. ”
“Paulina, your mother wasn’t thrown out without reason. ”
“Let her come back, at least for a few days. ”
“No.
It’s her home too. ”
“Not anymore. ”
I heard crying on the other end. “You have no heart,” she whispered, and hung up.
That evening, I returned to the empty apartment. I opened the refrigerator and stared at the shelves. There were eggs, a piece of cheese, butter, some potatoes. Bożena had always known what to do with them.
I didn’t. I peeled the potatoes, cut them unevenly, and threw them in a pan. The fat splattered on my hand. I burned the onion, and the eggs went in with pieces of shell.
I sat down at the table with a plate of something that was supposed to be dinner. Across from me was an empty chair. Only then did I realize how many small things Bożena had done every day that I’d never noticed—the tea placed beside me, the clean shirt, the light left on in the hall when I came home late. That didn’t mean I should forgive her.
It just meant I had no idea how to live without her. The first settlement meeting took place three weeks later. By then, Jerzy had gathered the documents, checked land registries, transfers, renovation invoices, and the history of our accounts. I’d done my part too.
I went through binders, old contracts, payment confirmations, bills for building materials. I worked with the precision of preparing an appraisal for the most important client of my life. Except this time, the subject of analysis was my marriage. Bożena arrived with her lawyer.
She was dressed plainly, no jewelry, a gray coat. She looked older than a few weeks earlier. For a moment, I wanted to ask if she was sleeping well, but I pushed the thought away. We no longer had the right to ask each other such things.
We sat across from each other. Her lawyer began matter-of-factly, stating that Bożena demanded half of the joint property, a share in the value of the house in Kaszuby, a portion of the savings, and a settlement of contributions made to the apartment. “For over thirty years, she ran the household, raised the daughters, and limited her own professional career,” the lawyer added. “Thanks to that, Mr.
Czesław was able to grow his business and take on new contracts. ”
Anger rose in me. “Limited her career? She worked at a private clinic.
”
“Part-time,” Bożena said quietly. I looked at her. “That was your choice. ”
“Not always,” she said.
Jerzy put a hand on my forearm, signaling for me to calm down. Everything I heard sounded like another attempt to build a convenient version of the past—Bożena as the devoted wife, me as the man who benefited from her work and noticed nothing. It didn’t fit the picture I carried in my head. I never forbade her from working.
I never said she had to stay home. I paid the bills, funded the trips, renovations, our daughters’ studies. I thought I was doing everything a responsible husband should. But with each session, I heard things I hadn’t allowed myself to hear before—my wife saying that when she wanted to go alone to a course in Warsaw, I first asked how much it would cost.
When she suggested a weekend by the sea, I checked the forecast, fuel prices, and drive time. When she said she was tired, I answered that everyone was tired. “You calculated everything,” she said during one meeting. “You saw the apartment as square meters, trips as expenses.
Even holidays had a schedule with you. ”
“What was I supposed to do? ” I asked. “Live without a plan.
Sometimes it was enough to just live with me. ”
Those words hurt. Not because I agreed with them right away, but because they reminded me of dozens of small moments—her silence at dinner, the resignation in her voice when she put down a travel brochure, the way she stopped talking when I began explaining why something wasn’t practical. It didn’t excuse Roman.
It didn’t excuse the lies, the hotels, the spending of our joint money, or what I saw when I came home from Wrocław. But for the first time, I began to understand that the betrayal hadn’t appeared in a vacuum. I wasn’t responsible for her decision. But I wasn’t blameless either.
The negotiations lasted several weeks. Jerzy consistently rejected my ideas to fight for every last złoty. “We could drag this out for years,” he said, “spend tens of thousands on expert opinions and hearings, drive the daughters even further apart, and end up with a result similar to what we can agree on now. ” In the end, we reached an agreement.
The apartment stayed with me. The documents confirmed I’d inherited a significant share before the marriage, though I had to settle the joint renovation contributions. Bożena received the car, a portion of the savings, and 280,000 złoty as a settlement for her share of investments and joint property. We decided to sell the house in Kaszuby.
That was the hardest decision. We’d spent many holidays there. The girls learned to swim in the nearby lake. Bożena planted herbs by the terrace, and every year I fixed the same leaking section of the roof.
I didn’t want to go there alone. She didn’t want to keep it either. At the final hearing, the judge asked questions in a calm, indifferent tone. Had the emotional bond ceased?
Were we still running a joint household? Did we see any possibility of reconciliation? I answered no every time, and Bożena did too. Then I heard that the marriage was dissolved.
So many years ended in a few sentences spoken by a stranger. I walked out of the courthouse with a folder under my arm. A fine rain was falling. People hurried along the sidewalk.
Someone was on the phone. Someone bought coffee at a kiosk. Jerzy stood beside me. “You got almost everything you wanted,” he said.
I looked at the wet steps. The apartment was mine. Most of the savings were secured. The case had ended faster than I’d expected.
I should have felt relief. I felt nothing. I stood in front of the courthouse as a free man. And yet I had the feeling I’d just lost the most important case of my life.
A few weeks after the divorce, I returned to work sooner than Jerzy advised. Sylwia tried to convince me to take a few days off, but I didn’t want to sit at home and stare at the empty chair across from the table. Work at least had clear rules. A property had dimensions, technical condition, location, and a determined value.
A report began with data and ended with conclusions. No one said after thirty years that they’d felt invisible all along. One day, I was at the station to pick up a representative of a construction company arriving from Warsaw for an office building appraisal. The train was delayed, so I stood in the main hall of Gdańsk Główny, staring at the departure board.
People with suitcases moved around me—someone running for a platform, someone hugging a child, someone arguing on the phone. The station always reminded me of a great machine. Everyone was going somewhere, everyone had a place and a time. “Czesiek.
”
I turned. A short, stocky man stood before me in a green jacket, a woolen cap pushed back on his head. Gray mustache, wide smile. I didn’t recognize him.
“Don’t look at me like that. Bogdan. ”
Then I saw it—the boy from my school bench, the one who always brought sausage sandwiches to class, laughed the loudest, and could convince the teacher he was late because of a derailed tram, even though he lived two streets from school. “Bogdan,” I repeated.
“Who else? ” He laughed and hugged me so hard the folder slipped from under my arm. We hadn’t seen each other in over thirty years. The last time was probably at a classmate’s funeral.
After that, only occasional news passed through others—someone said Bogdan traveled by train, someone else that he’d moved south. I never checked. “What are you doing here? ” I asked.
“Nothing. And that’s the best part. Retirement, Czesiu. Finally a man can be late and no one calls from dispatch.
”
He’d worked his whole life as a train driver for the Polish railways. He’d traveled from Gdańsk to Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, sometimes further. He talked about routes like old friends—where the fog hung over the tracks at dawn, which station had the best sour rye soup, where the switches froze faster than anywhere else. “And now I fish,” he announced.
“Not always successfully, but the fish don’t mind. ”
We sat in a station café. Bogdan ordered tea and a yeast pastry, even though he’d just claimed he was on a diet. He talked a lot, jumping from subject to subject—retirement, his old car, aching knees, the lakes in Kaszuby.
I answered briefly. At some point, he mentioned his wife. “Zosia always said we’d drive each other crazy within a week of retirement,” he said with a smile. “She didn’t live to see it.
”
I sobered. “I didn’t know. How could you? We hadn’t talked in years.
”
“Cancer. Three years ago. ” He said it calmly, without lowering his voice, without the look of a man expecting sympathy. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“I was too. Still am sometimes. But a man gets up in the morning even when he doesn’t feel like it. Then you feed the cat, buy bread, pay a bill, and somehow it goes.
”
I didn’t know what to say. Bogdan studied me for a moment. “Why so sour? You look like the bank seized your apartment.
”
“Nothing was seized. ”
“Then what? ”
“I got divorced. ”
I hadn’t planned to say it.
The words just came out. Bogdan didn’t widen his eyes. He didn’t start asking who was to blame. “Fresh thing.
A few weeks. ”
“Kids? ”
“Two daughters. Angry, one more than the other.
” He nodded, as if all of this made sense to him. “Then come with me. ”
“Where? ”
“To Kaszuby.
Tomorrow morning. Two, maybe three days. Lake, pier, cheap agritourism. Simple food, beds a bit too soft, but you’ll survive.
”
“I don’t know how to fish. ”
“Even better. You won’t bother me with advice. I have work on Saturday.
Reports. ”
Bogdan sighed theatrically. “Czesiek, you always had reports. In school, you probably would’ve written a report about skipping class.
” I refused. I said I had commitments, deadlines, clients—that I couldn’t just leave from one day to the next. Bogdan didn’t insist. He just wrote his number on the back of a receipt.
“If you come to your senses, call. ”
That evening, I went back to the empty apartment. I took off my coat, set the folder on the dresser, and turned on the kitchen light. On the top shelf stood Bożena’s cup, white with a blue rim.
She’d left it when she packed her things. She’d drunk coffee from it for years. It had a small crack by the handle, but she’d never let me throw it away. I picked it up.
For a moment, I thought I should pack it and return it to her. Then I thought I should throw it out. I did neither. I sat down at the table.
The apartment was quiet—not peaceful, empty. I took the receipt with Bogdan’s number from my pocket. I called. “Hello?
” He answered immediately. “What time do we leave? ”
He laughed. “Six-thirty.
And don’t bring a suit. ”
The next morning, I came down to the curb with a small bag. An old navy station wagon stood there, fishing rods strapped to the roof, the tailgate tied with a piece of red string. Bogdan leaned out the window.
“Well, Mr. Appraiser, get in before I change my mind. ”
I sat beside him. For the first time in years, I was leaving Gdańsk without a commission, without documents, without a precisely determined plan.
We reached Wdzydze before ten. The road was wet from the night rain, and low clouds hung over the forests so heavily they seemed about to settle on the car roof. Bogdan drove one-handed, tapping a rhythm on the steering wheel and switching radio stations every few minutes. “You were supposed to bring the thermos,” I said, noticing there was nothing between the seats but an empty water bottle.
“I was going to, but I didn’t. ”
I looked at him. “Then why did you say you’d make tea? ”
“Because I wanted to.
”
“Bogdan. Wanting and doing aren’t the same. ”
“That’s exactly why you spent your whole life doing and rarely wanting. ”
I didn’t answer.
He stopped at a small shop in the village. A faded sign hung over the entrance; jars of honey and plastic buckets sat in the window. “I’ll buy bread! ” he announced.
“We have sandwiches. ”
“Sandwiches are for the road. Bread is for life. ”
He got out before I could ask what that meant.
He came back fifteen minutes later with a loaf, a piece of smoked sausage, pickled cucumbers, and news that the cashier’s brother knew a man who allegedly pulled a pike nearly a meter long from the lake the day before. “Nearly a meter,” I repeated. “So probably sixty centimeters. ”
“You’d measure a legend with a ruler.
”
We stopped two more times. Once Bogdan talked to a man fixing a fence. Another time to a woman running an agritourism farm. He spoke to everyone like he’d known them for years.
Meanwhile, I checked the weather forecast, a map of the lake, and reviews of the place we were staying. “Does the price for the room match what you said? ” I asked. “Roughly.
”
“What does ‘roughly’ mean? ”
“That we won’t go bankrupt. ”
“That’s not an answer for me. ”
“We’ll see.
”
We arrived later than I’d planned. Bogdan first wanted to fish from the shore, then decided the pier was better, then after five minutes announced the wind was coming from the wrong direction and we needed to move further. “What depth are we fishing? ” I asked.
“Wherever the fish are. ”
“Very precise. ”
“Fish don’t read forecasts. ”
We sat on an old wooden pier.
The planks were damp and soft in places. The lake was the color of dark glass. Around us, silence, broken only by bird cries and the rustle of reeds. Bogdan showed me how to bait the hook and cast the rod.
The first time, the hook caught on the grass behind me. The second, the line dropped two meters from the pier. The third, I nearly hit Bogdan’s cap. “You’re improving,” he said.
“A bit more and you’ll catch a man. ”
For the next hour, nothing happened. The bobber sat motionless. I stared at it with growing impatience, like waiting for a late response from a client.
“Maybe we should change the bait? ” I said. “We could. Or the spot.
”
“We could. Or the depth. ”
“Also possible. ”
“Then why aren’t we doing anything?
”
Bogdan shrugged. “Because we’re sitting. ” That drove me crazy. I checked the wind, the water temperature, and local fishing reports.
I tried to find a rule, a reason, an error I could fix. When the line tangled again, I yanked it too hard. The rod snapped just above the handle. I stared at the broken piece, not believing I’d actually done it.
“Great,” I said. “Just great. ”
Bogdan took the rod from my hand and examined the damage. “It can be shortened.
”
“It’s broken. ”
“Yes, it is. ”
“And you’re calm? ”
“What should I do, yell at the lake?
”
I stood up abruptly. “Nothing’s been prepared since morning. No thermos, no plan. You change spots for no reason.
Now the gear is ruined. ”
Bogdan looked at me carefully. “Czesiek, this is fish. ”
“What?
”
“Not a bank report. It doesn’t have to add up. It doesn’t have to succeed. It’s under no obligation to bite just because you came and checked everything.
”
I sat back down. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. That evening, Bogdan made a fire by the farm. We sat on wooden benches, eating bread and sausage, drinking tea from a borrowed kettle.
I don’t know why I started talking then. Maybe it was the darkness. Maybe because Bogdan didn’t look at me with pity. I told him about Wrocław, the early train, the cheesecake, Roman’s car under the house, Bożena’s voice behind the locked door.
Then about Iwona and Paulina, that they knew, about Grażyna’s documents, the money, the trial. Bogdan listened without interrupting. “I thought winning the divorce would bring relief,” I said. “And I feel nothing.
Like someone emptied the whole apartment but left the furniture. ”
Bogdan added wood to the fire. “After Zosia died, I also thought everything was over,” he said. “For the first year, I resented people for laughing, neighbors for planning vacations, the sun for shining without permission.
And it passed. ”
I didn’t look at him. “That’s comforting. ”
“Pain doesn’t pass like a cold.
It just stops taking up all the space. First, there’s room for a cup of coffee. Then a conversation. Then some stupid joke.
Until one day you realize it didn’t hurt for an hour. ”
I was silent. Bogdan smiled suddenly. “Remember in eighth grade when we stole the school skeleton?
”
“We didn’t steal it. You stole it. I stood watch because you said the teacher allowed you. ”
“You believed me?
”
“You had a very convincing tone. ”
Bogdan told the story of how we put the skeleton on a tram and the conductor ordered him to buy a second ticket because the passenger was taking a seat. I smiled first, then snorted. Soon I was laughing so hard I had to put down my cup.
It was the first real laugh since the day I came back from Wrocław. The next morning, I thought we were heading home. I packed my bag, checked the room for anything left behind, and came down to the yard. Bogdan stood by the car with a map spread on the hood.
“What are you doing? ” I asked. “Changing the plan. ”
“What plan?
”
“The one we didn’t have. ” He looked at me. “We’re going through Toruń, then to Mazury. ”
“Bogdan, I was supposed to go back today.
”
“To what? ”
I tried to answer: to work, to reports, to the apartment. But none of those words sounded convincing. “Two days,” he added.
“Then I’ll drive you back. ”
I sighed. “Fine. ”
He smiled as if he’d known all along I’d agree.
In Toruń, we stopped for lunch. Bogdan picked a small bar near the old town where the owner personally served the soup and talked to every guest. The man was about sixty. When he heard we were heading to Mazury, he told us about his old guesthouse by the sea.
“I went bankrupt,” he said without a hint of shame. “Everything went. House, car, savings. I thought it was the end.
”
“And what did you do? ” I asked. “First, I sat for six months and cursed. Then I opened this bar.
Smaller trouble, smaller money, but I sleep peacefully. ”
He handed me a bowl of sour rye soup. “A man sometimes loses the life he imagined for himself, and only then starts truly living. ”
Bogdan looked at me but said nothing.
Later, in a parking lot, we met an older woman with a backpack. She was waiting for a bus and asked for help checking a connection. She was in her seventies, traveling alone to Olsztyn. “My husband died two years ago,” she said, putting away her phone.
“All our lives, we promised ourselves trips. There was always something more important. Now I travel alone. ”
“Aren’t you afraid?
” I asked. “I am. But you can bring fear along with you. ”
We waved to her as the bus pulled away.
That evening, we arrived at a small agritourism farm in Mazury. The host recommended a spot by the lake and introduced us to a local fisherman who would lend us a boat. The fisherman was quiet, thin, weathered by the wind. Only at dinner did he start talking.
He told us he hadn’t spoken to his son for eight years. They’d argued over money after his wife died. “Each of us waited for the other to call first,” he said. “Finally, I had a heart attack.
I lay in the hospital thinking: if I die, the last word between us will be a curse. ”
“Did you call him? ” I asked. “I called.
It wasn’t easy. But now he comes with his granddaughter every other weekend. ”
These encounters were brief. I didn’t know these people, and they didn’t know me.
Yet each of their sentences stayed with me longer than expected, as if they were all saying the same thing: a man can lose almost everything and still get up in the morning. The next day, Iwona called. I stepped a few meters away from Bogdan. “Dad, where are you?
”
“In Mazury. ”
“In Mazury? ” Surprise in her voice. “With an old friend.
Mom called,” she said after a moment. “She’s doing badly. She barely leaves the apartment. Paulina is completely on her side and still won’t talk to you.
”
I felt a familiar tightness in my chest. “Bożena made her choice. ”
“I know. And you both made a choice when you stayed silent.
”
“Dad, how many more times will you punish us for that? ”
I went quiet. “We were afraid,” she continued. “We did wrong.
But since the divorce, you treat us as if we were part of the betrayal. ”
Those words echoed in my head long after. I’d ended the marriage because I didn’t want to live in a lie. I had that right.
But my daughters hadn’t betrayed me the way Bożena had. They’d made a mistake, and I’d turned their fear into a guilt I forced them to carry alongside their mother. In the afternoon, we took the boat out. The sky was clear, but dark clouds gathered quickly on the horizon.
“We’re going back! ” Bogdan said. We didn’t make it. The wind hit suddenly.
The lake, calm moments before, covered itself with short, sharp waves. Rain fell so hard that in seconds I was soaked to the bone. Bogdan started the motor, but the boat began drifting sideways. “Hold on!
” he shouted. A wave poured over the side. The boat tilted so sharply that for a moment I saw only water. My heart pounded wildly.
I wasn’t thinking about the apartment, the money, who was right in court. I was only thinking that I could die here, a few kilometers from shore, wet and furious at the people I loved. Bogdan managed to steer the boat toward a cove. We rowed together until I felt the bottom under my boots.
We dragged the boat onto the bank and sat in the mud, breathing hard. For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then I said: “I don’t want to die as a man who spent his life proving he was right. ”
Bogdan wiped the water from his face.
“Then don’t. ”
That evening, I packed my bag. “We’re going back to Gdańsk tomorrow,” I said. “Work?
”
I shook my head. “My daughters. ”
We returned late in the afternoon. Bogdan stopped the car in front of my tenement but left the engine running.
“Will you call? ” he asked. “My daughters? ”
“Whoever needs to hear from you.
” I nodded. “I’ll call. ”
“Not tomorrow,” he said. I looked at him.
“Today. ”
This time, I didn’t argue. Iwona answered right away. Paulina only agreed to come after a few messages.
We met the next day in a small café near Oliwa. I chose a neutral place. I didn’t want to talk in my apartment or where Bożena now lived. Iwona came first.
She sat across from me and stirred her coffee for a long time, though she hadn’t added sugar. Paulina arrived a few minutes later, didn’t take off her coat, and sat next to her sister, as if to make clear whose side she was on. “Thank you for coming,” I began. Paulina looked away.
“I wanted to talk to you. ”
“Now? ” She asked, after all these weeks. “Yes, now.
” I took a breath. “I’m not going to apologize for the divorce. I couldn’t stay with your mother after what happened. ”
Paulina pressed her lips together.
“I knew it,” she muttered. “Here we go again. ”
“No. This time it’s about me.
”
She looked at me for the first time. “After I learned everything, I closed myself off. I treated anyone who wasn’t completely on my side as an enemy. You included.
”
Iwona set down her spoon. “Dad, we really didn’t want to hurt you. ”
“I know. ” Saying that word was harder than I’d expected.
“You were wrong to stay silent,” I added. “But I was wrong to lump you together with Bożena and Roman. ”
Paulina shook her head. “You think it’s that simple?
That you say one sentence and everything disappears? ”
“No, it won’t disappear. Your mother cried every day. You were cold.
You talked to us like we were witnesses in court. ”
“Because it was easier for me to interrogate than to listen. ”
Silence fell. Iwona looked at me with a tired expression.
“I was afraid of losing both of you,” she said. “If I told you, I was afraid you’d leave. If I didn’t tell you, you might leave anyway. I didn’t know what to do.
”
“I understand. ”
Paulina clasped her hands. “I was angry at you because it was easier to say you had no heart than to admit Mom did something like that. ” Her voice cracked.
“I didn’t want to hate her. ”
I didn’t reach for her. I didn’t want to force a gesture she wasn’t ready for. “You don’t have to choose between us,” I said.
“You can love your mother and still know she hurt me. ”
Paulina wiped her eyes. We didn’t fully reconcile that day. There were no hugs, no promises that everything would be fine from now on.
We only agreed to try. First dinner, then a walk. It was enough for a start. A few days later, I met Bożena.
She was picking up the last documents, a few boxes of clothes, and her mother’s porcelain. She stood in the hallway she’d known for thirty years, but looked around like a guest. “Thank you for packing everything,” she said. “Sylwia helped me find a moving company.
”
Bożena smiled slightly. “Of course, everything organized. ”
Once, I would have heard reproach in that sentence. This time, I just nodded.
We sat down for a moment in the kitchen. “I’m not with Roman anymore,” she said suddenly. I didn’t ask why. “It wasn’t how I imagined,” she added.
“I thought with him I’d be someone else. That I’d start over. But a person carries themselves everywhere. ”
She looked at me.
“I’m not happy, Czesiu. ”
Once, I might have felt satisfaction. This time, I only felt sadness. “I wasn’t happy for a long time either,” I said.
“Do you ever think we could have saved it? ”
For a moment, I looked at her hands. I knew every vein, every movement of her fingers. “Maybe earlier,” I said.
“Before we started lying to each other. But not now. ”
“So there’s no going back. ”
“No.
”
Bożena nodded. She didn’t cry. Neither did I. We said goodbye calmly, without shouting, without accusations, without another attempt to settle the past.
At work, I limited my travels. Sylwia took over some clients and the organization of commissions. It turned out the company didn’t fall apart just because I wasn’t personally controlling everything. In spring, for the first time in years, I took a longer vacation.
Bogdan called in April. “Biebrza,” he said, without greeting. “Birds, fog, mosquitoes, and fish that will probably ignore us. ”
This time, I bought a new fishing rod, prepared the sandwiches, and mapped out the route.
Bogdan still turned the wrong way somewhere along the way. I didn’t get angry. By the water, we sat from dawn. Mist hung low over the reeds, and the first light reflected off the calm river surface.
The bobber didn’t move. Once, I would have considered the morning wasted. I’d have counted the fuel, the time, the lodging, and come up with a result of zero. Now I sat quietly and watched the water.
My marriage was over. The home I’d known no longer existed. I hadn’t gotten my old life back, and I no longer wanted to. But I was breathing.
Beside me sat a friend. My daughters answered the phone again. Ahead of me was a day I didn’t have to appraise. The fish weren’t biting.
The water remained water. And for the first time, I thought that just the fact I was still here was truly enough.
