On My Birthday, My Husband Smashed My Head Against the Aquarium Glass, but the Child Pointed at Him and His Smile Disappeared

My husband smashed my head against the aquarium glass, then told the guests with a smile that I had simply fallen. Behind the glass, sharks were swimming slowly, while among them a little girl pressed both hands against the glass and looked at me with exactly the expression I had when I saw my own reflection in the mirror.

A champagne glass rolled off the table and shattered on the floor. The music was still playing, but nothing could cover its sound anymore — the buzzing in my ears, the guests’ restrained breathing, and Luka’s calm voice.

“No one worry,” he said. “Elene has been losing her balance often lately.”

I was leaning against the cold glass with my right hand. A warm drop of blood was running down from my forehead. Luka bent toward me and showed me the kind of smile he used only when he wanted others to believe that everything was under control.

“Give me your hand,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Don’t touch me.”

The room suddenly fell silent.

The woman wearing a silver dress put her drink on the table. Someone turned on a phone in front of the birthday cake, but immediately stopped filming. Luka’s hand froze in the air.

And I looked at the child again.

She was slowly moving along the other side of the aquarium and checked Luka every few steps. She wore a light-colored cardigan, and a small red paper star was attached to its pocket. One corner of the star was broken off. The girl had my eyes. My mouth. And between her eyebrows was the little wrinkle that appeared when I was afraid and still tried not to let it show.

Luka stepped aside and blocked the exit.

“Go back,” he told the child.

The girl stopped immediately.

Not because Luka was a stranger.

Because she knew his command.

“Come here,” I told her.

“She’s confused,” Luka said quickly. “Her mother left her downstairs. This has nothing to do with you.”

The child first looked at him, then at me.

“She told me not to call him Father today,” she said quietly.

The color disappeared from Luka’s face.

One question arose in my head and was immediately replaced by another. This girl was not simply similar to me. She was Luka’s child.

“What is your mother’s name?” I asked.

Luka grabbed my elbow.

“Elene, be quiet.”

I freed my hand.

“Hana,” the child answered.

Cold poured into my stomach. Hana was my younger sister — the one I had quarreled with four years earlier, when she told me that Luka was hiding something important from me. I called her jealous and envious. I did not call her the next day. A few weeks later her number was disconnected, and she disappeared from the family as well.

Luka began speaking quickly.

“Hana was unstable. She exaggerated everything. She uses the child too. She was always trying to destroy our marriage.”

The same words he had told me four years ago.

The girl reached a hand toward me.

“Is Mother your sister?”

“Yes.”

“Enough!” Luka shouted.

The child flinched. It was then that I stopped thinking about who was watching me.

I went to her.

The guests silently moved and stood between Luka and me. No one said anything, but for the first time that evening he no longer had a path to reach me.

The girl looked at my outstretched hand for a long time, then took a folded photograph from the pocket of her cardigan. The red paper star fell onto the floor. She placed the photograph in my hand, and that was when I saw what Hana was holding in her fingers…

In the photograph were Hana and I as children. Behind us stood our mother, but in the corner of the picture Luka was also visible — much younger, with his back to the camera. On the back of the photograph, in Hana’s handwriting, was written: “If you are reading this, call Elene.”

“Where did you find this?” I asked the child.

“In Mother’s bag. She told me to give it to you if she did not return again.”

Luka stepped forward.

“Give me the photograph.”

“No,” I said.

“You have no idea what you are doing.”

“Then why are you afraid?”

He could not find an answer. Below, in the elevator corridor, the sound of heavy footsteps was heard. Luka’s face changed.

The girl grabbed my wrist.

“Mother told me that if I got this far, I should find Mrs. Marina. She knows where the second recording is.”

“Who is Marina?” I asked.

For the first time Luka lost his patience.

“Don’t call anyone!”

But it was already too late. A message from Hana’s old number appeared on my phone. It contained only one sentence: “Do not trust his lawyer. The file is in the third locker in the storage room…”

Luka’s lawyer, Irakli, arrived in ten minutes, as if he had been waiting by the building’s elevator. He held a black folder, while Marina — our old family lawyer — stood behind him, her face white.

“This woman should not be here,” Luka said.

“On the contrary,” Marina replied. “It should be opened precisely in front of her.”

She placed the folder on the table. No one was speaking in the room anymore. Only the monotonous hum of the aquarium filter could be heard, and the red paper star lay at my feet.

“Four years ago Hana came to me,” Marina said. “She knew that Luka was planning to take the child away from her and hide the truth from you.”

Luka gave a short laugh.

“Hana was sick.”

“No,” Marina replied. “She was frightened.”

She took a small voice recorder from the folder and turned it on. First there was rustling, then Luka’s voice.

“If you tell Elene anything, you will never see the child again. I will make her believe that you disappeared, as you always disappear.”

My breath caught.

Then Hana’s voice sounded.

“She is my daughter, Luka. You cannot use her against Elene.”

“Elene will never believe you. She needs me.”

The recording ended.

The girl huddled beside me. And Luka stepped back, as if the voice had come not from him but from the wall.

“This is edited,” he said.

Marina took out a second document.

“The DNA result. The child is Luka’s biological daughter. Hana is her mother. But that is not the main thing here.”

She turned the paper toward me.

“Hana did not disappear of her own will four years ago. Luka placed her in a private medical institution on the basis of a false statement and signed her accounts himself.”

Luka’s lips parted.

“She would have harmed herself.”

“So he hid her from everyone?” I asked.

“I was doing this for you.”

That was the most terrible thing. He truly believed that with these words he was saving himself.

Marina took out her phone.

“Hana is alive,” she said. “And this morning she gave a statement to the police.”

Hope and fear exploded in my heart at the same time.

Luka’s phone rang. He looked at the screen and suddenly went as pale as when the girl had called him “Father.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

He did not answer me.

Before the call ended, only one word appeared on the screen: “Hana.”

Luka picked up the phone, but he still did not know that the hardest conversation for him was waiting not in this room, but in a police car…