Part 4 — When They Were Demolishing the Walls of My Seaside House, I Opened the Door and My Daughter-in-Law’s Smile Disappeared in One Second

For several seconds after Mirian’s final words, I could not say anything.

“Tell me her name,” I said.

“Nato Kereselidze.”

That name was not unfamiliar to me. Nato was the wife of Zaza, the clinic director. She had had lunch with me several times. She knew that after my husband’s death I especially cared for this house. She knew that I helped David during difficult years.

“She has no status as my representative,” I said.

“I know. But David submitted exactly such a document to the court. We will stop it first thing in the morning.”

That night I remained alone in the house.

Pieces of broken ceramics gleamed in the darkness in the kitchen. My husband’s ivory watch lay on the table. Its ticking sounded excessively peaceful among that rubble.

Mirian came at seven in the morning.

“David has already called us,” he told me.

“What does he say?”

“That everything was a misunderstanding and that if you withdraw the complaint, he himself will pay the renovation costs.”

“I am no longer interested in money.”

“Then what do you want?”

I looked down into the yard through the window. Pieces of my cabinets lay in the garbage container.

“I want no one to touch my life anymore.”

Mirian nodded.

We filed the application in court immediately. Any transaction concerning the house was suspended. The police began an investigation against David and Sara. Greg agreed to testify because his workers had also turned out to be deceived and had lost their wages.

But David still tried to regain control.

That same evening he was waiting for me outside my city house. When I got out of the car, he stood by the yard gate holding a small box.

“Mom, listen to me for at least five minutes.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Everything became confused because of Sara. I did not want to deceive you.”

“Then why did you sign?”

He opened the box. Inside were my old photographs.

“These were left in the house. I thought you might need them.”

“Returning my things cannot erase the day you stole my signature.”

David bit his lips.

“I am your son.”

“That is exactly why it hurts.”

“If I go to prison, my life will be over.”

For the first time I heard not regret in his voice, but fear.

“I am not ending your life, David. I am simply no longer stopping the consequences you created yourself.”

He left.

Two weeks later, at the hearing, Greg played his recording. David’s own voice sounded in the room.

“Mom will never check. We will manage everything.”

David raised his head. For the first time he heard these words from someone else’s mouth, as if they had never come from him.

“Turn it off,” he whispered.

The judge refused.

The recording continued.

“When the parents move in, she will no longer be able to back out.”

Sara buried her face in her hands.

David looked at Greg.

“Why did you record me?”

“Because you put my workers and my family in danger,” Greg replied. “I thought you were simply a foolish man. Then I realized you were planning to take someone else’s house.”

The judge kept the temporary injunction in force. The case of forgery and fraud was transferred to the prosecutor’s office. Sara offered a settlement, but Mirian refused.

“My client asks for only one thing,” he said. “That the house be protected and that the guilty parties take responsibility.”

David finally admitted that Sara had prepared the document, while Nato had only formally confirmed it. Nato lost her job. Zaza apologized to me for what had happened at the clinic, but I only told him not to share other people’s personal information in family conversations in the future.

On the day I returned home, the rooms were empty.

David’s and Sara’s things had been removed. Only one cardboard box remained in the guest room. On top of it, in my handwriting, was written: “Sea photographs.”

The kitchen still stood as rubble, but now that rubble was mine. Not one foreign thing lay there. Not someone else’s pink towel. Not someone else’s dishes.

In the bedroom, beneath the window, I found my old photograph. My husband was sitting on the balcony chair and smiling toward the camera. The corner of the photograph was broken, but the face had remained untouched.

That night I sat on the veranda.

I held the ivory watch in my hand.

Its ticking could still be heard.

Three months later I began the renovation again, this time according to my plan. I ordered the oak cabinets exactly as I had had them at first. I chose Greg as the head of the work.

“Only if you make every decision,” he told me.

“This time it will be so.”

He smiled.

I reduced my work at the clinic and spent several days a week by the sea. In the mornings I bought fresh bread at the market. In the afternoons I read on the veranda. In the evenings I planted in the yard the flowers that the container had spared.

One morning the neighbor’s little girl, Elene, came to me. She held a sheet of paper in her hand.

“I drew this for you,” she told me.

A house was depicted on the paper. Yellow light came from the windows, and in front stood a small woman holding a watch.

“Why am I holding a watch?” I asked.

“Because now time belongs to you.”

Her answer shook me more strongly than any court.

That same evening I received a message from David.

“I want to see you. Sara left. I understand everything. Maybe we can start again.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Earlier I would have run immediately after receiving such a message. I would have found money, called a lawyer, and taken his problems onto my own shoulders.

But now I wrote only one reply.

“I want peace for you, but you cannot return to my house.”

A few minutes later another message arrived.

“Mom, I am your son.”

I put the phone aside.

Sometimes love means opening a door.

And sometimes it means closing it so that no one from inside can destroy your life anymore.

On the first morning of winter, the house’s new kitchen was finished. The oak cabinets shone warmly in the sunlight. I hung my husband’s photograph on the wall. I placed two chairs on the veranda, although I sat only on one.

The ivory watch lay on the table.

Its ticking still peacefully filled the house.

I poured myself tea, opened the door, and the sound of the sea came in.

This time no one entered the house without my permission.

Time was mine again.