My husband was in intensive care. I was sitting in the hallway—and suddenly he called me on the phone.
My phone vibrated in my cardigan pocket at 11:14 PM. I was sipping cold tea from a paper cup and staring at the chipped tiles across the street. I automatically pulled out my phone—and froze.
The screen read: « Seryozha. »
I looked at the intensive care unit door. It was closed. My husband lay there—with a tube in his throat, an IV in his hand, unconscious. That’s what they’d told me three hours ago. A neurosurgeon in blue shoe covers, without looking up, said, « He’s in serious condition, stable, serious, please wait. »
I waited. I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t take off my blouse because it was cold in the hallway.
The phone continued to vibrate.
I pressed the green button.
« Hello? » I said. My voice sounded strange.
There was silence on the line. Then something like breathing. Or static. Or maybe I imagined it.
– Seryozha?
Silence.
I took the phone away from my ear and looked at the screen. The call was in progress. Twenty-three seconds, twenty-four.
– Seryozha, is that you?
Nothing.
I hung up. My hands weren’t shaking—I’d checked that. I just sat there, staring at the phone. Then I dialed his number myself. A long ring. No one picked up.
The hallway was quiet. Somewhere far away, in another wing, a child was crying. A nurse in a blue gown was pushing a gurney. The wheels creaked.
I stood up and walked over to the nurse’s stand.
« Excuse me, » I said. « My husband, Sergei Mikhailovich Lebedev, was admitted to intensive care at eight o’clock this evening. Tell me, please, does he have a phone with him? »
The nurse, young and with tired eyes, looked at me over her glasses.
— Patients’ belongings are deposited for safekeeping upon admission. Phones, too.
— I understand. So, he doesn’t have his phone?
– Of course not.
– Thank you.
I returned to the bench.
Seryozha was brought in by ambulance at 7:40 PM. I was at home, frying cutlets. My neighbor downstairs, Lyudmila Ivanovna, called—she saw him being carried out on a stretcher. He collapsed right in the entryway, between the first and second floors. He was returning from work.
I turned off the stove and drove off.
They kept me in the emergency room for forty minutes until the doctor on duty arrived. He was a young man, almost a boy, with dark circles under his eyes.
– Your husband?
– Yes.
— Hemorrhagic stroke. Brain hemorrhage. The surgery lasted two hours. Now he’s in intensive care, on life support. His condition is serious.
I nodded. For some reason, I didn’t cry. I just nodded and asked:
— Will he live?
The doctor looked away.
— We will do everything possible.
That’s not an answer. I know that. But I didn’t ask anything else.
At 11:40 PM, I pulled out my phone again and opened the call log. There it was—the one that came in at 11:14 PM, 31 seconds long. It was Seryozha’s number. His personal number, which I knew by heart.
I called his sister, Tanya. She lives in Krasnoyarsk and already knew—I’d told her earlier.
« Tanya, do you have access to his phone? Can you check if he called anyone after eight o’clock this evening? »
— How can I check if he is in the hospital?
— Through your operator’s personal account. I think you had a general tariff plan.
« No, we separated a long time ago. Lena, are you okay? Have you eaten at all? »
– I ate. Everything is fine.
— Do you want me to fly over? I can buy a ticket tomorrow.
– Not yet. Wait.
I put the phone away. A man appeared at the other end of the corridor—a man of about fifty, wearing a jacket and carrying a bag. He approached the counter, quietly chatted with the nurse, then sat down on the bench opposite. We didn’t look at each other. It’s not customary to look here. Everyone waits for their turn.
At 12:15 AM, I dozed off. My head fell to my shoulder, and I saw Seryozha standing in the kitchen, eating cutlets straight from the frying pan, as he always did when he thought I wasn’t looking. I saw him. I just kept quiet.
The phone woke me up.
02:07. Incoming call. Seryozha’s number.
I pressed the green button so fast that I almost dropped the phone.
– Seryozha!
Silence. The same thing again—breathing or noise, indistinguishable. Then—I could swear—something like a word. Very quiet. One syllable.
— What? Seryozha, speak louder. I can hear you. Speak.
Nothing.
The call was cut off.
I stood up and walked quickly to the counter. The nurse was different—older, stern.
“I need to go to the emergency room,” I said. “Please.”
— Visits are only allowed from nine in the morning, with the permission of the head of the department.
« I need it right now. You don’t understand—he’s calling me. »
The nurse looked at me with such tired kindness that my throat tightened.
“Darling,” she said. “Your husband can’t call. He’s unconscious. He has a tube in his windpipe. You’re just tired. Sit down.”
« I know he’s unconscious. But I have two incoming calls from his number on my phone. »
« Someone’s calling from his phone. Or it’s a technical error. It happens. »
– His phone is in your custody.
« The storage facility is in another building, » she said, not as an explanation, but as a closing sentence. « Sit down. Talk to the doctor in the morning. »
I returned to the bench.
The man with the bag opposite, it turned out, was not asleep. He was looking at me.
“Wife?” he asked quietly.
– Yes. And you?
“Mother.” He paused. “Seventy-eight years old. Heart attack.”
– Sorry.
— And you. — Pause. — I heard what you told the nurse. About the calls.
I didn’t answer.
“It happened to me,” he said. “When my father was dying. Two years ago. I was in the same hospital. And they called me from his number. I picked up – silence.”
– And what was that?
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Dad’s phone was in my jacket. Maybe a button was pressed. Maybe something else. Maybe nothing.”
— And he… survived?
The man looked at the bag at his feet.
– No.
We fell silent. Somewhere at the end of the corridor, an elevator hummed.
« But he was a good man, » the man said. « Until the very end. »
« Mine too, » I said, unexpectedly. « He ate cutlets straight from the frying pan. Secretly. He thought I didn’t know. »
The man smiled briefly.
— My father hid candy in the toolbox. Diabetes. My mother scolded him.
We fell silent again. But this time the silence was different.
At 4:20, I couldn’t resist going to the bathroom to wash my face. I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was unfamiliar—gray, with red veins around my eyes. I’d pulled my hair back into a ponytail at home, but now it was sticking out in all directions. I wet my wrists with cold water and stood there, closing my eyes.
Twenty two years old.
Serezha and I have been married for twenty-two years. We got married when I was twenty-six, he was twenty-nine. I was working at the library at the time and thought I’d work there my whole life. He’d just started his first small company—three people and a laptop in a rented room. We rented an apartment on Nagornaya Street, with a view of the factory chimneys. He said it was atmospheric.
I was angry at him for different things. For not capping the toothpaste tube. For putting his phone on the kitchen table during dinner. For promising « tomorrow » and then doing it the day after. For sometimes looking out the window with an expression on his face as if he wasn’t there, as if he was thinking about something important I’d never get to.
Little things. I got angry over little things.
I opened my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror.
« Sergei Mikhailovich, » I said out loud. « You have no right to die. Do you hear me? »
The mirror did not respond.
The phone in my pocket was silent.
I returned to the corridor.
At 6:30, the day shift arrived. The hallway came alive—people, gurneys, sounds. The man with the bag disappeared somewhere—I didn’t notice when. In his place sat a young woman holding a baby, both asleep.
At 8:15, the neurosurgeon arrived—a different one from the day before. He was older, with heavy hands, and a wrinkled gown.
– Lebedeva?
– I.
– Let’s go.
We entered a small office. He sat down, I remained standing.
« The night was stable, » he said. « The dynamics are neutral. The cerebral edema is under control. It’s too early to say anything definitive. »
— Is he conscious?
— No. Deep sedation plus my own coma.
— When will this change?
— It’s hard to say. Maybe in a day. Maybe in a week. Maybe longer.
I remained silent.
« Doctor, I have a strange question. I received two calls from my husband’s number last night. I know that’s impossible. The nurse said his phone is in storage. Can I check? »
He looked at me without surprise.
— The vault opens at nine. You can ask the administrator to check.
– Thank you.
— Any other questions?
— No. So, is he afraid? Does it hurt there?
The doctor looked at me for real for the first time.
« With such deep sedation—no. He doesn’t feel a thing. It’s a mercy, if you like. »
I nodded.
— Can I go to him?
— Five minutes. Just wear a mask and shoe covers.
The intensive care unit was smaller than I expected. Six beds, almost all occupied. Monitors, tubes, the smell—that hospital smell, the kind that makes you want to breathe shallowly.
Seryozha was lying by the window. I recognized him by his hands—large hands, wide wrists, a scar on the index finger of his right hand (he fell off a bike as a child, he’d told me a thousand times). His face was different—pale, with a pipe, covered in bandages. But the hands were his.
I took his hand and squeezed it.
“Hello,” I said quietly. “It’s me. Lena.”
The monitor beeped steadily. Nothing had changed.
“I was here all night. You called me. Twice. I don’t know how you did it, but I’m not surprised—you always did things you weren’t supposed to. Cutlets from the frying pan. Candy in the drawer.” I realized that last one wasn’t about him, and fell silent for a second. “Anyway, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
See more on the next page
