Part 4 — I Returned to My Parents’ House and Heard Their Truth, but When My Brother Saw My Bank Statement, His Face Changed

Liam lowered his eyes. It was obvious that he knew who was calling.

“Who was it?” Daniela asked me.

I looked at Liam.

“Your accomplice?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said.

For the first time his voice no longer sounded confident.

Daniela took the phone from me and immediately handed the number over to the police emergency department. Then she turned to the bank chief.

“Stop all transfers. Freeze the accounts. Not a single dollar is to leave.”

“We will need a court order for that,” he replied.

“The order is already on its way,” Daniela said. “We are going to the judge in the morning.”

Liam jumped to his feet.

“You cannot freeze my accounts! This is my money!”

“No,” I said. “This is the money that belonged to my parents.”

He struck the table with his hand.

“You were not here for ten years! I took care of them!”

“And you told them that I had died.”

“I had no other way.”

Those words remained in the room. Short, heavy, and sufficient.

Daniela called the lawyer Liam had hired for years. His answer was heard aloud because Daniela placed the phone on the table.

“Liam, I will no longer get involved in this case,” the man said. “I signed the documents you sent me. I thought you had your brother’s permission.”

“You are abandoning me now?”

“I have already left the case. You will cooperate with the police yourself.”

The call ended.

Liam collapsed into the chair. In front of him still lay the sheet on which my name was written. Even the name I carried with my own hands had been only a key for him.

The next day, at eight in the morning, we were sitting in a small police room. A clock was hanging on the wall, whose second hand jumped noisily. Jonah played the second recording.

First we heard Liam’s voice.

“Ten years is enough. Isaac thinks he is sending money to his parents. In fact, he is transferring my debts to himself.”

Then a woman’s voice was heard. It was my mother.

“But he said that Isaac went bankrupt?”

“Of course,” Liam answered. “By the time he finds this out, the house will be in my name.”

I was no longer breathing.

Liam could not bear listening to the recording. He buried his head in his hands.

“Turn it off,” he whispered.

“No,” my father said. “We will listen to it to the end for the first time.”

In the recording Liam was speaking with another man. The man told him that no one could stop the forced sale of the house after the auction. Then Liam laughed.

“If Isaac resists, the last transfer made in his name will be enough. Everyone will think that he managed the money himself.”

Now it was clear why the unfamiliar man had called me. They wanted to use the transfer made in my name against me.

There were twenty minutes left until nine in the morning when the police officers stood in front of Liam.

“Liam Perkins, you are under arrest on charges of fraud, forgery, financial crimes, and illegal appropriation of real estate.”

My mother lowered her eyes. She felt no relief. Only exhaustion.

My father tightened his grip on the cane.

“You are my son,” he said. “But I can no longer protect you.”

Liam looked toward me.

“Isaac, tell me that you will help me.”

I stood silently for several seconds.

“Talk to a lawyer,” I told him. “I will no longer protect you from your own parents.”

That same week we filed a lawsuit in court. The mortgage was canceled, the auction of the house was stopped, and part of my company’s lost money was recovered from Liam’s frozen accounts. It took years to recover the remaining money, but for the first time the numbers in the accounts were truly telling the truth.

Three days later Liam asked to take his things. A police officer stopped him at the door. My mother gave him only one box. Inside were photographs from his childhood and a small wooden musical clock.

“Why did you give him the clock?” I asked.

My mother carefully wiped her eyes.

“It belonged to your grandfather. He always thought Liam would repair it. But some mechanisms do not stop only because you are holding them in your hand.”

Liam took the clock. He opened the lid. Inside, the mechanism was still stopped.

“Mom…”

“Go, son,” she said. “Today, for the first time, take for yourself what is yours.”

That evening I entered my parents’ room. New boxes of medicine stood beside the bed. In the kitchen a full refrigerator was shining. But the cabinet in the hallway was empty.

Only a small piece of the dark saffron-colored ribbon remained there.

I picked it up and enclosed it in my palm. For ten years my money had been going away, but my family was still living in the cold. Now the heating in the house was working, and still I was afraid that silence was deceiving me again.

“Son,” my mother called from the living room, “today for the first time we are not ashamed that we called you.”

I smiled.

“From now on, call me always.”

Six weeks later my father again walked through the hallway independently. He still had the cane, but we removed the electrical tape and replaced the handle with a new wooden one. My mother planted tomatoes in the yard. Every morning in the house began with the smell of coffee and freshly baked bread.

I decided to stay in Phoenix. I entrusted the management of one of my company’s centers to Jonah, because he was the only one who, late but still, dared to preserve the truth. Daniela remained our lawyer and checked every month that no account was in someone else’s hands.

One morning, in November, my mother placed a sheet of paper on the kitchen table. A small childish house was drawn on it. The sun was rising from the roof, and three figures stood by the windows.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“My granddaughter, Marisa,” she told me. “She called me yesterday and said that the family would no longer have to leave the house.”

Marisa was my niece. Liam’s daughter. She had no choice in what happened to her father. So every week I sent her books, but I never again transferred money to Liam’s account.

Two months later I received a letter from Liam. This time the signature was genuine.

“Help me. I will return everything. Just come once.”

Daniela told me that this might be an attempt to mitigate responsibility in court.

I looked at the letter for a long time.

Then I wrote a reply.

“Talk to your lawyer. I will take care of my parents. As for your decisions, answer for them in your own name.”

I sent the letter and opened the window. Outside, the first light snow was falling, a rare sight in Phoenix. My mother was standing on the balcony, while my father had fallen asleep in an armchair.

I returned the small wooden musical clock to the cabinet in the hallway. Its mechanism still did not work. I did not try to repair it anymore.

Some things must remain stopped so that you do not forget when you lost time.

I placed the piece of dark saffron-colored ribbon under the clock.

This time the box was empty.