Part 4 — The Husband Did Not Call at His Mother’s Funeral, but When His Lawyer Opened the Folder, Brandon’s Smile Disappeared

The next day, at six in the morning, Brandon called me twenty-one times.

I did not answer the first call.

Nor the second.

On the third, I turned off the phone completely.

In Arthur’s office, two police investigators, a bank auditor, and Celesta Moore were already sitting. Raindrops fell against the windows, while Rosalind’s silver key lay on the table.

“This is the file she sent one day before her death,” the investigator said.

There was no sympathy in his voice. Only precision.

The audio began.

First Rosalind’s breathing could be heard. Then Brandon’s voice.

“Sign it, Mother. If you do not sign, I will blame Lucia for withholding your medicines.”

Rosalind’s weak voice answered:

“You are stealing money from me.”

“I am not buying money, I am buying time.”

“Lucia will find out everything.”

“Lucia? She is so naive that she will thank me even for my lies.”

Silence fell over the room.

Brandon had said those words with his own mouth.

But when the recording ended, he was still trying to escape.

At eight in the morning his lawyer called us.

“You must meet my client immediately,” he said.

“No,” Arthur answered.

“It is your professional obligation.”

“It is no longer my obligation to defend a person when he has knowingly falsified contracts and evidence. I am ending my representation today.”

“Mr. Pendleton…”

“Tell him to go to the police station. They are waiting there.”

The call ended.

Brandon tried once more to regain control. He called the bank. He ordered the company’s employees to hide everything. He asked Miranda to say that I had forced his mother to sign the documents.

But the copies left by Rosalind had already been sent to four places.

In the evening Brandon arrived at the police station. Arthur and I were sitting in the second room, behind transparent glass.

The investigator played the audio from the beginning again.

Brandon listened to his own voice.

“Lucia is so naive that she will thank me even for my lies.”

His face slowly changed.

“I did not say that,” he whispered.

The investigator stopped the voice.

“Is this your voice?”

“It may be my voice, but you do not know the context.”

“Then explain the context to us.”

Brandon opened his mouth and closed it again.

For the first time I saw what that person looked like when no one could lie in his place.

The next day he was charged with financial fraud, document forgery, and psychological pressure against an elderly person. The court froze his accounts, while our house temporarily remained my property, because Rosalind’s will said that I was to live in it if her son took the house away from me.

I could not return there.

The rooms were full of the echo of his footsteps.

The trace of Brandon’s suitcase remained in the bedroom. In the closet I found only one thing: my old cream-colored scarf, with small copper bells attached to its ends. Rosalind had given it to me years before, because she said that she should always hear my arrival at the house.

I picked up the scarf.

One bell was broken.

The rest of the room stood empty.

Several weeks later I rented a small apartment in the northern part of the city. In the mornings I worked at a rehabilitation center, where I helped elderly people restore movement. For the first time in a long while, my days began not with someone else’s orders, but with my decisions.

Elena, my younger sister, came every Saturday.

One evening she brought her eight-year-old son, Niko, with her. The boy spread colored pencils on the table and drew a house on a sheet of paper.

“Is this your house?” I asked.

“Ours,” he answered. “The door locks from the inside here.”

His words struck my heart.

“Why did you draw such a big door?”

Niko shrugged.

“So that whoever you do not love cannot come in.”

Elena looked at me. We both smiled, but our eyes filled with tears.

That winter I began, for the first time, to listen to the evening silence. I no longer waited for the telephone to ring, no longer checked the clock, and no longer thought about where Brandon was and whom he was deceiving.

Three months later I received a letter from him.

“Lucia, I know that I did many things badly. If you come even once, I will explain everything to you. I forgive Mother too. We can start again.”

I read the letter to the end.

Then I handed it to Arthur.

“Does it need an answer?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

I wrote only one sentence on the paper:

“I do not need to start again. I have already started.”

Arthur sent the letter.

Brandon called me once more. This time his voice was very quiet.

“Lucia, please.”

“No, Brandon.”

“Just one meeting.”

“No.”

“Do you really feel nothing anymore?”

I was standing by the window. Outside, the first snow was falling, and white dots were sparkling on the street lamps.

“I do feel,” I told him. “But what I feel no longer obliges me to save you.”

I ended the call.

That same evening I attached Niko’s drawing to the refrigerator. Under it I placed Rosalind’s silver key. The key no longer opened anything. The box was empty, but the truth was already walking freely through my life.

Then I took the cream-colored scarf and wrapped it around my neck. The small copper bell that still remained rang lightly.

This time the sound did not announce anyone’s arrival.

It marked my departure.