In My Estate, an Unknown Child Uttered My Twenty-Year Secret, and the Color Disappeared from Rebecca’s Face in One Second

That morning Rebecca’s six-year-old son knelt beside my armchair and uttered a name that almost no one had heard for nearly twenty years.

It was seven o’clock in the morning in the estate’s courtyard. The lawn was trimmed so precisely that it seemed even the grass was afraid of violating order. The fountain’s water fell into the stone basin in the same rhythm, while I felt nothing except the heavy emptiness stuck in my legs.

During the last six months, the doctors had repeated the same sentence to me so many times that I heard it even in my dreams.

“Perhaps you will never walk again.”

That day I was silently repeating those very words when I heard the sound of small steps in the corner of the courtyard. I did not raise my head. Everyone in the house knew that I wanted to be left alone.

But the child was coming straight toward me.

He was wearing a yellow sock whose edge had slipped down on his left foot, and he was holding a small wooden airplane. Red paint had been scraped off one of the airplane’s wings.

“Why are you crying, Ethan?” he asked me.

There was no fear in his voice. Nor was there that awkward pity which I had seen in the eyes of every adult during the last months.

“Because my legs no longer obey me.”

“Did the doctors say that?”

“Yes.”

“And you believed them?”

I laughed bitterly.

“You have to believe doctors.”

The child first looked at my knees, then at my face. His fingers gripped the wooden airplane so tightly that his fingernails turned white.

“May I pray for you?”

That simple question stopped something in my throat. For months everyone had been talking about my body, but no one had asked me what I felt.

“You may, Sammy.”

He sat down in front of me and took my hands in his. His palms were warm. Mine were cold as ice.

“God, if You can, return Ethan’s legs to him. If You cannot, then at least give him such a heart that he will no longer want to give up.”

I heard the door opening behind me. Rebecca was standing there, holding a broom. Her face was worried.

“Sammy, enough. Mr. Ethan needs to rest.”

“I do not need to rest,” I told her. “Let him stay.”

Rebecca lowered her eyes.

“He is a child.”

“I will give him whatever he wants.”

Sammy stood up.

“I do not want money.”

“A house? An education? A car?”

“Nothing.”

His answer left a strange emptiness inside me. All my life I had thought that any door opened with money. But this child seemed interested in none of the doors.

Sammy leaned close to me. His hair carried the smell of soap and dust.

“Mother said that you too had a name you were afraid to mention.”

Rebecca suddenly tensed.

“Sammy, come to me.”

But the child had already quietly uttered the word.

“Nora.”

My fingers clenched around the arm of the chair. The sounds of the courtyard disappeared. The fountain too, the birds, the rustling of the wind.

Nora.

That name disappeared from my life twenty years ago. I heard it for the last time in the hospital’s white corridor, when my father told me that the girl had died and that there was no point in seeing her anymore.

“How do you know that name?” I said with difficulty.

The broom slipped from Rebecca’s hand.

“Ethan…”

“How does your son know Nora’s name?”

She could not answer me.

But Sammy was looking at me calmly.

“Mother told me that Grandpa was supposed to remember.”

Cold poured down my back.

“What did you say?”

Rebecca took a step backward, but it was already too late. In her gaze she no longer stood as my assistant. Something older and heavier could be seen there.

“Go into the house, Sammy,” she said in a hoarse voice.

“But Mr. Ethan does not know what is in the study.”

“Sammy!”

The child became frightened, though he did not let go of my hand.

At that moment the sound of a key came from the study door. Someone was entering inside. Rebecca looked at me, pale, while I turned the armchair toward the door. Unknown footsteps approached, and then a folder lying on the dark wooden desk slid onto the floor and opened. Rebecca bent toward it and reached her hand toward the first page…

Rebecca’s fingers touched the first page, but she immediately pulled back, as though the paper had burned her.

It was eight o’clock in the morning in the study. The light coming through the window fell on the edge of the folder, while Sammy, lying on the floor, was looking down at his red-winged airplane.

“Who is this?” I asked.

Rebecca pressed her lips together.

“You should not have seen it.”

“I have already seen it.”

“Ethan, please, not today.”

“Today is exactly the day it must be.”

She handed me the folder. Its cover was worn, and an old clinic stamp could be seen on it. My surname was written on the first page. Below it was a date I remembered, but I had always thought that I already knew everything about that day.

Twenty years ago my father told me that Nora had died in a car accident. He said that the baby had not survived either. I managed to reach the hospital only after everything was over. My father spoke with the doctors, arranged the funeral, and advised me not to look back into the past.

I believed him.

Even on the day when my body suddenly stopped obeying me, the doctors could not find an injury that explained my inability. Still, I sat in the armchair and felt punished.

“Where did you get this document?” I asked Rebecca.

“I found it among my mother’s belongings.”

“Who was your mother?”

Rebecca lowered her eyes.

“Nora.”

The word fell into the room like a heavy object.

Sammy suddenly raised his head.

“Mother said that my father’s father was a very sad man.”

“Who is your father?” I asked.

The child shrugged.

“I do not know. Mother says he is in the sky.”

Rebecca quickly reached for his hand.

“Enough.”

“No,” I told her. “You must tell me everything.”

She looked toward me. For the first time I saw not obedience on her face, but resentment.

“You abandoned my mother.”

“I was told that she was dead.”

“Maybe, but you did not look for her.”

Those words were more painful than any conclusion by the doctors.

Several letters lay in the folder. The first was in my father’s handwriting. It said that Nora had to be paid money so that she would leave the city. In the second letter, the clinic doctor confirmed that the mother and the newborn had been transferred under other names.

“Why did you hide this?” I asked.

“Because I wanted to be sure first.”

“Sure of what?”

“That you were the man my mother talked about.”

“Were my words or my face not enough?”

“Mother told me that you had once been different. But I saw only a rich, angry man who pays everyone to stay with him.”

Her answer took the warmth from my face.

“Why did you come here to work?”

“Because I had to find my father’s letters in your house archive.”

“And Sammy?”

Rebecca looked at the child.

“Sammy accidentally saw your old photograph. Then he found your name on a document. He said that the man Mother talked about had eyes like yours.”

There was a knock at the door. My lawyer, Davit Meladze, entered, holding a small wooden box.

“Mr. Ethan, your father left this with me,” he said. “He told me to give it to you only if a member of Nora’s family ever appeared in this house.”

“Why did you not give it to me until now?”

“Because I did not know to whom I should give it.”

The box had an old silver lock. Rebecca stopped by the door. Sammy placed his hand on my knee.

“Open it,” he told me.

Davit shook his head.

“Inside is an answer that no one will be able to change anymore.”

I approached the lock. My fingers were trembling. When I lifted the lid, I saw a small glass vial and a sealed paper inside. Davit held his breath, while Rebecca closed her eyes. Then he said that everything would be confirmed by the sample in the vial, and he was about to open the envelope…

Davit carefully ran a knife over the sealed paper. It was nine o’clock in the morning in the study, but the room already seemed dark to me like evening.

“Before I open it, you must know,” he said, “your father kept this document. It contains his confession and a genetic conclusion.”

“Open it,” I said.

Rebecca stood by the window. Sammy clung to her skirt. I could hear my own heartbeat.

Davit took out the first page.

“Nora did not die in a car accident. She left the hospital alive. Your father paid the doctor to change the death certificate and give your newborn son to another family.”

Silence fell over the room.

“My son?” I asked.

Davit nodded.

“The boy Nora gave birth to was your biological son. Your father told you that both of them had died because he did not want the family name shamed because of a poor woman.”

Tears came down Rebecca’s eyes.

“Mother learned only at the end who had taken the child from us. She searched for him for years.”

“Where is my son?” I asked.

Davit looked at the second page.

“Nora did not find him. The record says that the child was taken abroad. His new name is not indicated.”

Sammy turned toward me.

“Is it me?” he asked.

Rebecca immediately knelt in front of him.

“No, darling. You are my son.”

“But Mr. Ethan said that he was his son.”

“No, Sammy,” I said, my throat tightening. “You are my grandson. If everything is correct.”

Davit raised the glass vial.

“That is exactly why this sample is necessary. It contains your biological material, taken years ago at the clinic. I have already tested Rebecca’s sample. The conclusion is unequivocal: she is your daughter.”

Rebecca sank into a chair. Her hands rested on her knees.

“You are my father,” she said as if she were learning the words for the first time.

I reached toward her, but the armchair’s wheels caught in the carpet.

“I do not know how to repent for twenty years.”

“You cannot repent,” she replied. “But at least you can not run away in the end.”

At that moment I felt a strange wave in the muscles of my legs. Not pain. As if my body were trying to speak to me for the first time.

“Sammy,” I called to the child. “Why did you come straight to me that morning?”

He took a small folded paper from his pocket.

“Mother gave me this. She told me that if I ever saw you, I should say Nora’s name.”

I opened the paper. One sentence was written on it: “Ethan, if you cannot take back my child, at least understand that he was alive.”

Davit looked at his phone. An unknown number was shining on the screen.

“Were you expecting this call?” I asked.

“No.”

He answered. He listened silently for several seconds, then his face changed.

“Mr. Ethan,” he said, “the former clinic nurse is alive. She said that she knows to whom your child was given and that she is planning to flee the city this evening…”

Davit put the phone on the table. Rebecca saw my face, and for the first time she did not hide her fear. My lost son might have been alive. But at that same moment another page slid onto the floor from my father’s old folder—it had one address and a date that would come only three days later…