Part 4 — My Mother Screamed When I Touched Her in the Bathroom, While Downstairs My Brother Smiled Strangely and Fell Silent at Once

Julian’s smile did not last even three seconds.

The police officer took the phone from his hand and pushed him against the wall.

“Hands behind your back.”

“I was not doing anything,” Julian said.

“The investigation will determine that.”

Chloe shouted that she would call a lawyer. Her voice struck the walls of the room, but no one was afraid of her anymore.

I stayed with Mother.

The doctor bandaged her wrists and then took photographs. Mother closed her eyes at every photograph.

“Is it enough?” she asked me.

“It is enough for them to believe you,” I told her.

“You believed me.”

“I should have called you from the beginning.”

“You came.”

Those two words struck me more heavily than any accusation.

Two more cars stopped outside. Investigators entered and searched the house from room to room. In the kitchen they found the pieces of Mother’s broken phone. In the bedroom, beneath the bed, lay a rope with small spots of blood on its surface.

Chloe stepped in front of one of the investigators.

“We have this rope for the garden.”

“They do not tie beds in the garden,” he replied calmly.

Julian saw her face and realized for the first time that Chloe was no longer going to protect him.

“You said everything was settled,” he told her.

“Me? You told me Mother could not prove anything.”

“Be quiet.”

“Why should I be quiet when I will be arrested because of you too?”

Their words remained in the room. The camera that the investigators had already turned on recorded every sound.

Julian later heard his own voice.

This happened the next day, in a small room of the investigative service, at ten in the morning. On the table there was only a bottle of water, a folder, and a recorder. I waited outside the window while the investigator played the recording.

First Julian’s voice was heard.

“If Mother does not sign, tie her to the bed. Tomorrow we will say that she fell down the stairs.”

Then Chloe’s voice.

“Elena will not believe us anyway. She has her own life.”

“That is exactly why we sent her away to the city.”

Julian sat on a chair. His face could be seen in the pale light of the screen.

“I did not say that,” he said quietly.

The investigator did not turn off the sound.

“Sell the lake house today. Before Elena realizes anything.”

Julian raised his head.

“Turn it off.”

“You said the recording was fake,” I told him.

“I do not remember.”

“But you remember your voice.”

He looked toward me.

“You are my sister.”

“That is exactly why I thought you were a better person.”

He had no answer anymore.

That same evening, Judge Thorne extended Mother’s temporary protective order. Julian was forbidden to approach the house, the bank, or Mother. Chloe called a lawyer, but after seeing the case materials, the lawyer ended his representation of her.

“I cannot defend a person who is trying to destroy evidence,” he told Chloe over the phone. “Find another lawyer.”

Chloe hung up as if the receiver had burned her hand.

The answer from the bank came at eleven at night. The visitor really was a man hired by Julian. He had a false guardianship document and was asking to open the vault.

But the bank employee saw the instruction left by Father: “The vault is to be opened only in the presence of Elena Vance.”

There we found Father’s last letter, the old will, and Mother’s signed statement that her property was to be divided equally among the children, but that no house was to be sold during her lifetime.

The sale of the lake cottage was canceled.

The accounts were frozen.

A case was opened against Julian and Chloe for elder abuse, coercion, financial fraud, and forgery of documents. The court found them guilty. Julian was sentenced to a long prison term, while Chloe was sentenced and ordered to stay away from the victim.

I did not meet this story with joy.

As Mother was leaving the courthouse, she stopped on the stairs.

“Were they punished?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why am I not happy?”

“Because you lost a child, even if he had lost you a long time ago.”

She rested her head on my shoulder.

“I got you back.”

During the first week after we returned home, Mother’s room was the most difficult thing. We removed the bed, and the rope did not return from the examination, but its mark remained on the wall. We opened the curtains. The morning sun fell on the floor and touched the place where Mother had lain silently for months.

Her heavy coat hung in the wardrobe.

The coat she had been afraid to take off that night.

Mother looked at it for a long time.

“Shall we throw it away?” I asked.

“No. Not yet.”

Two months later Mother moved in with me, to a seaside city. I rented a small apartment on the third floor. The harbor could be seen from the window, and in the morning the fishermen’s voices woke me.

I returned to work, but every evening at six I called Mother. Sometimes we said only a few words.

“Did you eat?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take your medicine?”

“You have become strict like you.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“The best.”

Mother slowly began to walk. On Sundays we went to the market. She chose tomatoes for a long time, while I complained that they were all alike.

“The one who has fought for a long time has the right to choose,” she told me once.

The first snow came in December. Mother stood by the window and watched the street. In her hand she held a picture drawn by my nephew, little Luka. The child had drawn a house with an enormous sun above it in pencil.

“This is our new house,” she told me.

“The roof is a little slanted.”

“What matters is that the door does not lock from the outside.”

We both laughed.

Six months later I received a letter from Julian. The envelope bore a prison stamp. There was only one page in the letter.

“Elena, I know I have not earned forgiveness. But tell Mother that I remember how she used to sing in my childhood. I want her to listen to me at least once.”

I read the letter to Mother.

She said nothing for a long time.

“Do you want us to reply?” I asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“For the first time, I am.”

I put the letter away in a drawer. I did not send a reply. This was not revenge. I simply was no longer obliged to add to his crime with my silence or love.

That summer we returned the lake cottage to Mother. The house still stood there, by the water, with a wooden balcony and an old swing. On the very first day Mother opened the windows.

“Will you stay here?” she asked me.

“As long as you want.”

“Then put on the tea. You are not a guest.”

In the kitchen I boiled the kettle. Father’s old clock still hung on the wall. It was slightly slow, but every evening it still chimed exactly at six.

Mother took the coat and hung it in the wardrobe. This time she took it off herself, calmly and without hurry. Inside it had a small cloth pocket, in which she put Luka’s drawing.

“Why this?” I asked.

“So that I will always remember where I should return.”

The first autumn rain began outside. Drops of water glistened on the branches standing in front of the house. Mother opened the door and stopped on the threshold.

I stood beside her.

For a long time I thought that I had saved Mother that night.

Now I know that she saved me too—from the life in which hiding the truth for the sake of family seemed like love.

The coat hung in the wardrobe, while the door remained open.

For the first time, Mother was no longer afraid.