Part 4 — After ten years of silence, my ex-husband asked me whether I regretted losing him — when he saw it on the phone screen, he turned pale

When Levan finished his last word, Viktor looked at the phone.

Calls appeared on the screen one after another.

The accountant.

The lawyer.

The bank representative.

Viktor answered every call, but no one on the other end could stay for more than a few seconds.

“Tell me what is happening!” he shouted.

A tense man’s voice sounded in the phone:

“Mr. Viktor, the company accounts have been temporarily frozen.”

“Who froze them?”

“The investigation. And our firm has withdrawn from the case.”

“You are my lawyer!”

“I was. Now I have a conflict of interest. Your signatures are in the documents.”

The call ended.

Viktor slammed the phone on the table.

“Did you do all this?” he asked me.

“No.”

“Levan? The police?”

“You did it. It is just that for the first time there was someone who did not cover it up.”

He paced around the room. He pushed the corner of the folder lying on the floor with his shoe, as if hiding the papers were still possible.

“I only took money that was mine.”

“Ours.”

“The family was falling apart at that time!”

“You destroyed the family. And you transferred the money before you told me about the divorce.”

“I don’t remember.”

Levan turned on the computer.

“Now you will remember.”

His own voice sounded in the room.

The recording had been made ten years earlier. Viktor was talking to someone. In the background, the noise of an old printer and the opening of a door could be heard.

“Elene must be left with nothing,” the young Viktor was saying. “If I leave her money, she will get back on her feet. It is better for her to think that she can do nothing without me.”

“And what if she finds out about the loan?”

“She won’t find out. I’ll get her to sign without her realizing it. When she needs my help again, she will call me herself.”

The recording ended.

Viktor lowered his eyes.

For the first time he was listening to himself the way I had listened that morning when the investigator sent me this recording.

“I didn’t talk like that,” he said.

“You did.”

“This is taken out of context.”

“My son lived all ten years with exactly this context.”

Viktor looked toward me.

“I still want to see Niko.”

“Not today.”

“Then when?”

“When the court establishes that you did not return only because of a photograph.”

Anger and desperation alternated on his face.

“You have no right to forbid me from seeing my son.”

“You had no right to be unaware of his existence for ten years and now present yourself as the victim.”

This time Viktor did not answer anything.

At noon, the police took him from the office. He was still trying to maintain control.

“This is temporary,” he repeated. “Soon everything will become clear.”

But in the corridor no one believed him anymore.

His former partners stood shyly by the wall. The secretary lowered her eyes. The security guard opened the door for him, but no longer greeted Viktor.

In the evening I returned home.

Niko was sitting in the living room and drawing with wooden pencils. There was milky tea on the table, and his mathematics notebook lay open beside it.

“Mom, is that man my father?” he asked me.

I sat down beside him.

“Biologically, yes.”

“And why didn’t I know?”

“Because some adults hide their mistakes from other people.”

Niko put the pencil on the table.

“Do I have to love him now?”

That question pierced my heart like a knife.

“No one should love you out of obligation. Neither him. Nor you.”

“Do you love me?”

“From the very first day.”

He rested his head on my shoulder. His hair touched my cheek, while the little crescent on his left wrist was still visible, just as it had been nine years ago.

Three weeks later, the court prohibited Viktor from managing the company. The financial investigation continued, the forged loan was canceled, and all debts were removed from my name. He was not sentenced to prison because he returned part of the money and reached an agreement with the victims, but no one could ever again give him permission to use people’s lives as his own spare room.

Niko met him only once.

This meeting took place in a child psychologist’s office. A small cactus stood on the windowsill, and colorful animals were drawn on the wall.

Viktor sat down in front of Niko.

“I am your father,” he told him.

Niko looked at him calmly.

“I know.”

“I am very sorry.”

“For what?”

Viktor could not find an answer.

“For not being there.”

Niko shrugged.

“Then be the one you are now. But do not ask me to bring back the old years.”

Viktor lowered his head.

I stood by the window and realized that Niko had turned out to be stronger than me. He chose neither revenge nor rejection. He simply drew a boundary.

Months passed.

We moved to another city, to a seaside neighborhood, where the sound of seagulls woke me in the morning and Niko rode to school by bicycle. My firm grew. Twice a week I helped young women organize their financial documents for free.

Niko chose a soccer team. His drawing hung on the wall at home — three people by the sea, with a large yellow sun in the middle. One of the figures had a small crescent on his left hand.

On the first day of winter, Viktor sent me a message.

“I want us to start everything over. Now I know what loss means.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Earlier, words like these would have ruined my whole day. Now they resembled only one man’s belated regret.

I replied:

“You can start with yourself. Starting our life over is no longer possible.”

Then I turned off the phone.

Niko came into the kitchen holding the old copper compass. The one that had appeared in the photographs and had first shown Viktor his own face.

“Mom, does the compass still show the right path?” he asked.

“If you ask the right question, always.”

He put the compass on the table. It slowly turned and stopped facing north.

I opened the window.

The first snow was falling outside.

The compass needle no longer trembled.