Part 4 — I Heard a Lie When I Returned Home, But Fear Appeared on Patricia’s Face

The call from the clinic was still connected when Patricia picked up the phone from the table and ran toward the door.

“You are not going anywhere,” I told her.

“You cannot detain me.”

“Not me. The police will be waiting for you at the gate.”

She stopped.

Her face no longer resembled that calm, caring woman whom everyone had trusted for two years. Now only a frightened person stood there, who had no exit left.

“Ethan, think,” she said. “I preserved everything in this house. I raised your girls.”

“Did you raise them, or frighten them?”

Patricia could not find an answer.

The lawyer called the police. Clara went to the girls and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. And I looked at the lemon-shaped timer, which was still ticking.

A small, yellow, ceramic object.

Clara told me that Sophie had broken its handle years ago and she herself had repaired it with glue. I did not even know this story.

“Do you really think that I planned everything?” Patricia asked me.

“No,” I answered. “I think you planned everything a long time ago.”

Her lawyer called ten minutes later.

“My client will not sign anything until you release her.”

“She is no longer my employee.”

“Then this looks like house arrest.”

“The door is open. You may leave. The police are outside.”

Silence fell on the line.

Then the lawyer said quietly:

“Patricia, do not say anything else.”

But it was already too late.

The lawyer played the recording again. This time the voice was heard not in the hallway, but on the large screen, in front of her. Patricia heard her own words.

“Daddy can do anything. He loves children only when they are quiet.”

Her face tensed.

“If Clara does not leave, he will abandon you too.”

Patricia covered her ears with her hands.

“Turn it off.”

“You said this,” I told her.

“I was trying to protect the children.”

“Then why did you tell a five-year-old child that her father would abandon her?”

She looked at me and for the first time was unable to justify herself.

The police officers entered. They did not put handcuffs on her immediately. First they read the documents, checked the copies of the camera recordings, and asked Patricia several questions.

“This signature does not belong to you, Mr. Whitaker?” one of them asked me.

“No.”

“And the files from your wife’s clinic confirm that she never issued guardianship permission.”

I nodded.

My wife’s letter lay in the clinic folder. She had written two weeks before her death that Patricia had excessively large access to the children and that they were afraid of her. She could not send me the letter then. Patricia hid it, just as she hid everything else.

“Ethan, if something happens to me, trust Clara. She is not trying to take my place. She is trying not to let the girls lose themselves.”

When I read the letter, my hands froze.

Clara stood by the window and looked outside.

“Why didn’t you tell me all this?” I asked.

“As many times as I tried, you were not at home.”

This sentence went deeper inside me than the letter.

Patricia was taken away.

The house suddenly became very large.

In her room only an empty hanger remained, and on the white dresser lay an old photograph of the girls. The photograph was not placed face up. It was turned toward the wall, as if she could no longer look at their faces.

That same evening Sophie asked me:

“Will you let Clara go now?”

“No.”

“Because the recording exists?”

“No. Because she listened to you when I could not listen to you.”

Avery picked up the lemon timer in her hand.

“Can this stay with us?”

“Of course.”

“Then we have to set the time.”

“For what?”

Sophie answered me:

“So that you are home in the evening.”

That night I did not go into the study for the first time. I sat on the floor and cut apple slices together with both girls. Avery arranged them according to their colors. And every few minutes Sophie checked my hand, as if making sure that I was still there.

Three weeks later I handed over the management of my company temporarily to a partner and rented a small house in the northern part of the city. I left the old mansion for sale. There were too many doors there, behind which I knew nothing.

Clara no longer worked with us as a servant. She became the girls’ guardian and my friend. Every morning there was the smell of cinnamon in the kitchen. Avery learned drawing at school, while Sophie acquired a new habit: before sleep she herself left the door half open.

One morning snow came.

In Houston this was rare. The girls stood by the window and counted the flakes. I made hot chocolate for them, but I burned the milk.

“Daddy, this is horrible,” Avery said.

“I know.”

“Will we drink it anyway?”

“Together.”

That evening I received a message from an unknown number on the phone.

“You can fix everything. I am still part of your family. Meet me just once.”

It was Patricia.

I read the message for a long time. I felt neither anger nor victory. Only weariness.

I sent the answer in one sentence.

“My family is now where fear no longer rules the room.”

Then I blocked the number.

At night I put the girls to sleep. We turned on the blue night-light. We left the door half open. The rabbit stood to Sophie’s left.

And in the kitchen I set the yellow lemon-shaped timer for five minutes.

It was still ticking.

This time I was staying home.

And for the first time, time was on my side.