After lunch, my son and I were thrown to the floor, but when my husband returned, the smile disappeared from his face

My son’s body collapsed at the lunch table, and at that same moment I understood that this was not ordinary weakness.

The fork fell from Leo’s hand and hit the plate with such a noise that it sounded as if something had broken in the kitchen. His head leaned against the edge of the table. His eyes were half-open, but he was no longer looking at me.

“Leo?” I called and rose from my chair.

David immediately gripped my wrist.

“Don’t touch him. It is probably his blood pressure.”

His voice was too calm.

The smell of stewed meat hung over the table, although underneath it there was some bitter, metallic-like aroma. That evening I remembered for the first time how insistently David had asked me to serve the portions himself. He put my plate on the left, and Leo’s on the right, as if it were an ordinary habit.

A coldness poured into my stomach.

“Call an ambulance,” I told him.

David looked me in the eyes.

“Eat first yourself. Don’t panic.”

At that moment I understood that if I screamed now, we might not survive. Something burned in my throat, my legs were going numb, but my mind was still working clearly. I fell from the chair and onto the floor, as if I had lost consciousness.

I pressed my cheek against the cold tile. I slowed my breathing. I closed my eyes.

Leo’s chest moved slightly. That was enough for hope not to die.

David did not move for several seconds. Then he picked up the phone and left the kitchen. I heard his voice beyond the door, quietly but clearly.

“It’s finished… soon neither of them will be here. I divided the portions separately.”

It was as if someone had thrust a knife into my heart.

Me and Leo. Both of us.

The sound of his heavy boots approached again. The steps stopped beside my head. Then he touched Leo’s ribs with the tip of his foot.

“It is better this way for everyone,” he whispered.

Every muscle of my body screamed for me to get up, but I did not move. David walked around me, as if he wanted to make sure I was dead. Then the garage door opened and closed.

I opened my eyes.

Our phones had disappeared from the counter. David had calculated everything in advance. Everything except the old landline phone that he had mocked for years and that I had hidden in the pantry under menu papers.

With my heavy body I crawled toward it. My fingers were trembling, but a ringing sound came through the receiver.

Just then the garage handle rattled.

David had decided to return.

The receiver fell from my hand. I returned beside Leo, put my hand in the same place, closed my eyes, and stopped breathing.

The door opened slowly.

The boots stopped beside my face.

David bent down, put his hand on my throat, and said quietly:

“Sarah?…”

His fingers squeezed me harder, while from the pantry the warning clicking of the disconnected phone could still be heard…

David’s thumb pressed against my throat. My skin froze, but I did not open my eyes. His breath touched my face.

“If you can hear me, move now,” he whispered.

In the darkness the phone was still clicking. David turned his head toward the pantry.

“What the hell is that?”

He took his hand away from me and quickly stood up. At that moment Leo moved his fingers slightly. I touched his wrist, only once, barely noticeably.

David opened the pantry door. The papers fell onto the floor. The receiver was no longer there. When I fell, I had deliberately rolled it under the table.

“Did someone call?” his voice was heard.

The voice of our female neighbor, Marina, came from the hallway:

“Sarah, why isn’t the door opening? Is everything all right?”

David changed his tone in one second.

“Sarah is feeling ill. I am waiting for an ambulance.”

Marina did not leave.

“Then open the door for me.”

David looked toward me. For the first time I saw fear in his eyes. He did not know that the receiver was already on an open line and Marina could hear everything.

Leo exhaled.

David took a step toward him, but someone knocked loudly on the door from outside.

“Police! Open the door immediately!”

David rushed to escape. And I opened my eyes and screamed with all my strength:

“My son is alive! Don’t let him escape!”

The footsteps behind the door stopped. David took a small leather bag from the counter and turned toward me.

“You have no idea whom you are fighting,” he told me.

He took something out of the bag, but before he could open his hand, the sound of another car braking came from the yard. The police broke down the door.

David dropped the object onto the floor.

It was a copy of my son’s birth certificate, whose existence I had never seen. On its back was written one sentence that showed everything in a different light…

They had not yet put handcuffs on David, but two police officers were already standing on both sides of him. I was sitting on the floor, Leo’s head was in my lap, and an ambulance worker was checking his breathing.

Marina reached for the certificate lying on the floor.

“Sarah, something is written here,” she told me.

I took the paper from her hand. On the back it was written by hand: “Leo’s birth record has been changed. The original is kept in Niko Beridze’s office.”

Niko Beridze was David’s accountant. A man who had been declared dead in a car accident three years earlier.

David shook his head.

“This is fake. Sarah, don’t believe it.”

“Then why did you have it?” I asked.

He could not answer me.

The policeman took the receiver from the pantry and wrote down the number to which the line was still open. Marina picked up the phone. David’s previous conversation could be heard from it.

“It’s finished… soon neither of them will be here. I divided the portions separately.”

A heavy silence fell over the room.

David looked at the wall.

“This has been taken out of context.”

“Then listen to the whole conversation,” the policeman told him.

David’s voice was heard again in the recording.

“The money will be transferred tomorrow. The house will remain in my name. Nothing must remain in the boy’s name, otherwise it will expose the accountant’s affair.”

Leo opened his eyes.

“Mother… I want water.”

His voice was weak, but alive. David looked toward him and his face changed.

At the hospital, at two o’clock at night, the doctor told us that a few minutes had saved us from death. A strong sleeping substance had been mixed into the food. The dose did not prove fatal because Leo spilled part of his portion onto the floor, and I ate only a few bites.

The next day they really found a folder in Niko’s office. It said that David had embezzled the company’s money for years and had also emptied Leo’s inheritance account. Niko discovered everything and left a letter for me before going into hiding.

But there was something else on the last page of the folder.

The policeman opened it beside my bed and looked at me, pale.

“Sarah, this document says that David has another person to hide. That person contacted us alive this morning…”