We choose, we are chosen... Happiness is when the feelings are mutual. And if not? The story that formed the basis of the story “The Faithful Husband”, which opens this book, is real. At one of the many reader meetings, a woman came up to me and handed me a bundle of letters. I must admit, I forgot about them, and when I remembered and started reading, I couldn’t put it down. There was so much passion, so much torment, so much joy in these letters... I never knew the man who wrote these letters, I never knew the woman who they are addressed. But it seemed to me that I heard their voices, saw their faces. And I can perfectly imagine the feelings of my heroine, who, after the death of her beloved husband, discovered them - other people's letters, which contained the very words that she had been waiting for all her life...