Part 4 — My Best Friend Married My Sister, but His Words in the Operating Room Suddenly Made My Mother Go Pale

Nino hung up the phone and for several seconds could not speak.

“What document is it?” I asked.

“Rosie’s birth record. Not only a medical record. A complaint signed by a doctor.”

Givi put his hand against the wall.

“This is nonsense.”

Ben looked toward him.

“The police are already on their way.”

Father immediately took out his phone. First he called one number, then another. No one answered.

“Call my lawyer,” he told me.

I looked at Nino.

“Can you help us?”

“I am already helping you. But now you must decide whether you want to give an official statement.”

Father quickly turned his head.

“Ana, do not dare. This is a family matter.”

“No, Father. This is Rosie’s life.”

For the first time I saw his eyes filled with fear.

Twenty minutes later, police officers entered the corridor. One of them held a large folder, and the other a small voice recorder.

“Givi Kavtaradze?” the woman asked.

“I will say nothing without a lawyer.”

“Your lawyer is already refusing to continue the case,” she replied calmly. “He stated that you hid important information from him.”

Givi seemed not to understand.

“What does refusing mean?”

“It means that from this moment you are alone.”

Father looked toward me.

“Ana, tell them that I only wanted to protect Rosie.”

“Why did you empty her account for four years?”

“Her money was the family’s money.”

“And the doctor’s complaint?”

He had no answer anymore.

The police officer opened the folder. It said that Rosie had been born with a serious heart defect immediately after birth. The cardiologist at the time advised the parents to transfer the child to a specialized clinic and arrange constant monitoring. But Givi signed as if no problem existed.

Why?

Because insurance and assistance would be issued only if Rosie’s diagnosis was officially recorded. Then, as Nino explained, he used that same diagnosis against her—he convinced everyone that Rosie would never be able to manage her own affairs.

Rosie was not only losing money. For years she was not receiving the necessary examinations.

That was precisely why her pregnancy was so dangerous.

“Father, did you know about her heart problem?” I asked.

Givi pressed his lips together.

“The doctor said that nothing might happen.”

“And still you did not tell her.”

“I was afraid they would take the children away from us.”

Nino smiled bitterly.

“You were not afraid of losing the children. You were afraid that you would no longer be able to control the money.”

Rosie remained in intensive care for three days. I sat beside her bed, while Ben met every doctor outside the door. The twins slept in small incubators. Transparent tubes curled around their fingers, but both of them were breathing.

On the fourth morning, Rosie opened her eyes.

“Ana?” she asked quietly.

“I am here.”

“Tell Ben that you found my paper?”

I smiled and cried.

“We found everything.”

“Is Father angry?”

“Yes.”

Rosie thought for several seconds.

“Then for the first time he was truly afraid.”

Ben looked into the room.

“May I come in?”

“Only if you bring tea,” Rosie told him.

Ben laughed. At that moment I realized that his marriage had been neither for money nor to stay close to me. He stood beside Rosie when the whole world saw her as a weak creature.

Within a few weeks, the court temporarily froze Givi’s property and accounts. The investigation confirmed embezzlement, concealment of medical records, and an attempt to falsify Rosie’s will. He was sentenced.

I was not happy in court.

I felt only exhaustion.

When Father looked at me for the last time, there was no anger in his eyes anymore. Only that emptiness remained that appears in a person when he can no longer hide from his own years of lies.

Once, they played the recording in the courtroom. We all heard his voice:

“No one in court will believe Rosie’s opinion anyway.”

Father lowered his head.

His own words destroyed him.

Rosie left the hospital two months later. In her room at home, her small yellow childhood clip was still lying. They found it under the bed, dusty and broken at one tooth.

Rosie picked it up.

“I will not wear this anymore,” she said. “But I do not want to throw it away.”

“Why?”

“Because I was me even then.”

I never forgot that answer.

Six months later we moved to another city. Rosie began working at an assistance center, where she helped women understand banking matters. Ben fed the children in the morning, and in the evening worked in a small ceramics workshop.

I started working at a library. Every morning I sat by the window, opened books, and for the first time in my life did not expect some door to open by force again.

The twins grew up. We named the boy Luka and the girl Mariam. They were already crawling on the carpet and touching everything with their hands.

One evening Luka put a pencil on Rosie’s drawing. Four people stood in the drawing beneath a yellow sun.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“Our home,” Rosie answered.

“People are a home?”

“If they protect you properly, yes.”

When winter came, the first snow arrived at night. In the morning the street was quiet and white. I was standing by the window when I received a message from an unknown number on my phone.

“Ana, please listen to me at least once. I am your father.”

A second message followed immediately.

“Everything can be fixed.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I deleted it.

Rosie came into the kitchen.

“Who was it?”

“The past.”

“Did you answer?”

“No.”

Rosie nodded, as if I had given the most correct answer.

Then she stood by the window. In her hand she still held that small, broken yellow clip. Now it lay on the shelf together with the children’s first photographs.

Ben brought in tea.

“It is snowing outside,” he said.

“I know.”

Rosie placed the clip beside the photograph.

The first ray of sun fell directly on it.

This time the yellow color no longer meant pain.

It meant freedom.