Part 4 — Because of the Pregnancy, They Humiliated Me Every Day, but That Morning One Word from Me Would Erase Daniel’s Smile from His Face Forever

After Nino’s last words, such silence fell over the room that I clearly heard the ticking of the wall clock.

“Where is your child now?” Ana asked.

Nino’s trembling could be heard from the phone.

“With my mother… but Daniel knows the address. He told me that if I spoke to the police, my child would never return home again.”

Levan was already walking toward the door.

“Send me the address.”

“Levan, do not go alone,” I warned.

“I will not go alone.”

At the same time, the investigator called for an additional group. Ana went into the corridor and called a lawyer, while I sat on the bed and stroked my stomach.

The baby was moving calmly.

And for the first time I allowed myself to think not about how to save Daniel’s mood, but about how to protect my child.

Daniel’s lawyer came in the evening. He was tall, with a long umbrella and such polished shoes that his reflection could be seen on the hospital’s white floor.

“My client claims that this was an accident,” he said.

“His words are on the recording,” Ana answered.

“The authenticity of the recording must be established.”

Levan clicked printed photographs onto the table.

“Here are the sums transferred over six months. Daniel hid money from my sister and did not tell her about the loans taken in her name. Here are his letters in which he plans how to declare Marika incapable.”

The lawyer looked through the papers.

“All this still does not mean intentional beating.”

“Then listen to the recording,” I said.

We turned on the recorder.

Daniel’s voice sounded in the room again.

“Today I will teach you whom you belong to.”

The lawyer lowered his eyes.

“I will no longer continue this case,” he said.

Daniel immediately jumped up.

“What do you mean, you will no longer continue?”

“It means that it is already clear to me whom I am standing against.”

“I am paying you money!”

“Money does not change evidence.”

This was the first time Daniel heard his own words through someone else’s mouth. He had always thought that a threat spoken aloud disappeared in the room. Now his voice returned from the device and stood before everyone.

He covered his ears with his hands.

“Turn it off!”

“You cannot turn off what already exists as copies,” I told him.

That night the police went to Nino’s mother’s house. Her child was brought out safely. Nino returned to the hospital at dawn, her eyes reddened, and she held a pink hair clip in her hand.

“I knew everything,” she told me. “Not the beatings, but I knew that you were afraid of him. Agnes told me that if I told the truth, Daniel would destroy my family.”

“Why did you not begin defending me?”

Nino lowered her head.

“Because I was a coward too.”

Her confession could not change the past. But for the first time one person did not justify herself before me, but told the truth.

The next day the court ordered Daniel detained until trial. An investigation also began against Agnes and Givi, because the camera recordings showed how they hid the stick and tried to erase my phone.

Their house remained empty.

I was taken out of the hospital under protection. In my former bedroom I left only one thing: the copper whistle, which I hung on a small nail in the wall.

Daniel’s lawyer told me that I should never return to the house again.

I gave no answer.

The house was no longer my life.

Three weeks later I moved into a small rented apartment. A river could be seen from the window, and in the kitchen the morning sun drew a golden stripe across the wooden floor.

Levan assembled the baby’s crib. One bolt remained extra, and he searched for a long time where it should be attached.

“This never happened in military service,” he muttered.

“Because pregnant women did not assemble beds there.”

For the first time in a long while, I laughed.

The baby was born one week before term.

It was a girl.

When the doctor gave her to me, her fingers wrapped around my finger so tightly that I thought the whole world could fit in that little hand.

I named her Elene.

Daniel sent me a letter from prison. In the first he said that he regretted it. In the second he wrote that Agnes and Givi had influenced him badly. In the third there was only one sentence: “We can start over.”

I did not show the letters to Levan.

The fourth letter arrived two months after the child’s birth.

“I am Elene’s father. I have the right to see her.”

This time I answered.

“Elene has the right to grow up without fear. And you have already received what followed from your choice.”

I wrote nothing more.

Months passed.

I began working at a women’s assistance center, where I helped other women write statements, collect documents, and say the words that I myself had managed to say far too late.

Every morning Elene drew at my desk. In her drawings, houses always had large windows, while the doors were open.

One day she drew a small golden circle on a sheet of paper.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Mother’s voice,” she answered.

“Is a voice colorful?”

“When you are not afraid, yes.”

That evening the first snow came. Elene stood by the window and counted the flakes that fell onto her palm. I was boiling tea in the kitchen when a cautious knock sounded at the door.

Nino was standing on the threshold.

In her hand she held the same silver ring that had unpleasantly clinked against the table that morning.

“This should be with you,” she told me. “Daniel sent it. He says it is the last chance.”

I looked at the ring and shook my head.

“I do not want his things anymore.”

“He said that he has changed.”

“Maybe. But I no longer live in the house where I must wait for his change.”

Nino wiped her eyes.

“Will you ever forgive me?”

I did not have an answer immediately.

“Forgiveness may come someday. But trust will not return.”

She took the ring with her.

I closed the door and went to Elene. She held a pencil in her hand. She had drawn a new picture: a small house, large windows, and a copper whistle hanging beside the door.

The whistle that for years I had thought was a sign of fear was now simply part of our house.

Elene rested her head on my shoulder.

Outside, snow was falling silently.

And for the first time I understood that survival does not always come with noise.

Sometimes it begins with two words that you send while trembling.

“Help me, please.”

And it ends with no one in your house being afraid to breathe quietly.

The copper whistle swayed lightly by the window.

This time it was calling no one.

I was already home.