Part 4 — On My Birthday, My Mother-in-Law Waved Her Hand at Me, but When the Guest Spread Out the Photos, the Smile Disappeared from Her Face

Mauricio’s car quickly cut around the corner and disappeared into the rainy street.

Mariana picked up the phone.

“I’m calling the clinic.”

“I’ll contact the police,” Patricia said.

And I locked the green folder in my bag. At that moment I realized that fear no longer stopped me. Fear had already done its job—it had convinced me for years that I had no right to protect my home, my money, and my life.

In half an hour we found out the clinic’s address.

Mauricio’s father, Roberto, was on the top floor. We found the door of his room open. Mauricio was standing beside the bed and breaking open an old wooden cabinet.

“Where is the safe key?” he was asking his father.

“I left nothing for you.”

“Father, don’t force me.”

I stopped at the door.

“You already did.”

Mauricio turned around. Anger and fear were fighting each other on his face.

“Why did you come here?”

“Because your father had to tell the truth.”

Roberto closed his eyes.

“Daniela, forgive me. I knew the money was yours. I knew that Mauricio used the country-house account without your permission.”

Mauricio struck the bed with his hand.

“Don’t listen to him. His medications got mixed up.”

“It has been months since I have taken my medications exactly,” Roberto said. “And I gave the safe key to your mother, not to you.”

At that moment Teresa appeared in the hallway. She held a small black bag in her hand.

“No one will open anything,” she said.

Patricia pointed her phone directly at her.

“Mrs. Teresa, please put the bag on the table.”

“Who is asking you?”

“A person who already has a recording of your son’s conversation.”

Teresa’s hand stopped.

Mariana called the police and calmly explained that they were trying to destroy possible evidence. Within several minutes two investigators arrived. They opened the bag. Inside they found the safe key, bank statements, and a document on which my signature had been imitated.

For the first time Mauricio could say nothing.

One of the investigators picked up the document with a glove.

“Is this signature yours?” he asked me.

“No.”

“And this transfer of money?”

Mariana looked at the statement.

“One million one hundred thousand pesos. The money was transferred from Daniela’s account to the account of the country-house company.”

Mauricio shook his head.

“It was a temporary loan.”

“Where is the agreement?” the investigator asked.

Mauricio could not find an answer.

The next day his lawyer came to my apartment. He was no longer holding the divorce agreement. He had only one folder.

“Your husband is threatening me that if I do not defend him, he will blame everything on me,” he told me. “But I no longer represent him.”

“Why did you come?”

“I want to tell you that the document they were asking you to sign contained a renunciation of property rights. I thought you knew its full contents. Now I understand that you were deliberately deceived.”

He also attached his written statement to the case.

That same week the investigators questioned Mauricio, Teresa, and Elena separately. Elena admitted in the first hour that she knew about the apartment money. Teresa denied everything, but then they played her own voice to her.

“You will no longer have a place in this house.”

Those were her words, said to me on the morning of my birthday.

Teresa sat on a chair and listened to the recording. Her face slowly changed. Finally she buried her head in her hands.

“I only wanted to preserve the family,” she whispered.

Mauricio looked at her.

“You told me everything would be simple.”

“You were the one who signed.”

She heard her own words for the first time in front of others. Her eyes widened, as if she could not recognize the voice.

“I did not say that.”

The investigator played the recording from the beginning again.

“If she finds the document, everything will fall apart for us.”

Mauricio covered his face with his hands.

I stood in the corner of the room and felt strangely calm. Not because I was rejoicing at their misfortune. Simply, for the first time I was no longer obliged to cover their lie with my own heart.

The apartment was temporarily frozen in my name. The country-house account was frozen. The bank confirmed that my money had been transferred illegally. Several months later the court fully recognized my ownership right, while the investigation into fraud and the forged signature continued.

Mauricio compensated for the damage and obeyed the restrictions established by the court in order to avoid imprisonment. Teresa had to leave the house. Elena left the city.

I drove no one away.

I simply locked the door.

After they left, the rooms became strangely empty. Teresa’s clothes cupboard was empty, but one thing remained on the floor—my embroidered apron, which Elena had worn in the photographs. I picked it up, washed it, and spread it out on the balcony.

The wind spread out the fabric. The small embroidered pomegranate was still clearly visible.

Three weeks later I turned one room of the apartment into a small medical-consultation office. I went to work every day again. In the morning I made coffee, put a first-aid kit in my bag, and opened the windows before leaving the house.

Mariana sometimes came to me. Patricia also often called me. And after recovering, Roberto sent me a box of his old books and attached a short letter:

“Thank you for no longer allowing my son to hide from his actions.”

Six months later the first snow came. The city was covered in white. I was standing on the balcony when a cautious knock sounded at the door.

It was Mauricio.

His hair was shorter, and his face was thinner. He held a small paper bag in his hand.

“Just five minutes,” he said.

“Do you have something to say?”

“I want to come back home.”

I did not look behind him.

“This house is no longer the place from which you left.”

“I made a mistake.”

“A mistake is when you hurt someone accidentally. But you planned for months how to take everything from me.”

He put the paper bag on the floor. Inside was a new cake.

“Your birthday will be soon.”

“Now I know how to celebrate it.”

“Daniela, I really love you.”

I looked at him for a long time. Once, these words had carried my whole life. Now they sounded only like a tired voice.

“You may love me, but I can no longer save you from yourself.”

He lowered his head.

“Is this the final answer?”

“Yes.”

I closed the door quietly.

The next day his message arrived. It said that if I ever changed my mind, there would always be a place for me with him. I did not reply.

I went out onto the balcony. The embroidered apron was already dry. I picked it up and put it away in the kitchen cupboard, not as a memory of betrayal, but as an object that had finally returned to me.

Morning light came through the window. Below, the city was waking up. Someone was running after a bus, someone was taking a child to school, and someone was raising the shutter of a shop.

And for the first time in a long while, I was waiting for no one.

The embroidered pomegranate flashed in the sun.

My home was mine again.