Part 4 — The fire trapped my children by the window, while a neighbor’s shout made the color drain from my husband’s face.

Part 4

…I had no answer to offer Andro’s question. I held the phone in my hand while the screen still flickered with that very photo—Sasha’s empty bed, with my red plastic hairpin lying on the floor right beside it.

— “Eka, tell me where you are!”

— “In the yard. With the children. Come immediately, and don’t tell anyone you’re coming.”

— “Pavel knows you have the recording.”

— “Now I know that you knew everything all along.”

Andro fell silent.

That silence was heavier than any answer.

Pavel attempted to regain control that very morning. First, a call came from the management office. A woman claiming to be their attorney told me that the recording was obtained illegally, and distributing it would amount to “artificially escalating family issues.”

— “My children nearly died,” I replied.

— “You are in an emotional state.”

— “No. For the first time, I am completely sober.”

Then Pavel called me himself.

— “Ekaterine, this was an unfortunate accident.”

— “Then why was there a hidden key inside my window grille?”

— “Andro hid it from you. I know nothing about it.”

— “And why do you have a photo of my bedroom?”

His breathing shifted on the line.

— “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

— “I know I am going to the police.”

— “If you go, Andro will face serious trouble as well.”

In that moment, I felt fear lose its grip on me completely. I had spent the night surrounded by fire. No one could intimidate me over the phone anymore.

Dmitri drove us to the police station in his car. Masha’s arm was wrapped in a white bandage applied by the firefighter. Sasha slept in the back seat, coughing softly every few minutes.

Levani joined us there as well. He took the recorder from me, but before we even opened the door, two investigators were already waiting inside.

— “Ma’am, can Mr. Orlov claim that your husband was trying to break into your home?” one of them asked me.

— “He can. That is precisely why I brought this.”

I turned on the recorder.

My raspy voice echoed through the room first, followed by Pavel’s threats. The investigators sat motionless. When Andro’s voice came through, my husband lowered his head.

— “Did you record this conversation yourself?” I asked him.

— “Yes.”

— “Why did you hide it from me?”

— “I wanted to gather evidence without putting you in danger first.”

— “You hid the danger from me, Andro. And the danger walked into our home anyway.”

Levani played the recording from the beginning once more, this time on speaker. Andro heard his own words:

“I’m going to the police tomorrow.”

Then Pavel’s sneer.

Andro sat down on a chair. It was as if he realized for the first time that this voice belonged to him—not just a plan left in the past.

— “I thought I had enough time,” he said.

— “And I thought I wasn’t alone.”

That same evening, investigators confirmed that the bedroom photo had been taken with the management technician’s phone. He confessed that he had entered the apartment two days earlier under Pavel’s orders to “check the electrical wiring.” In reality, he had installed a small camera in the hallway.

Pavel was arrested that night. The technician was arrested as well. But that wasn’t the end of it.

Another recording surfaced.

In it, Pavel was asking a fire inspector to write in the official report that the grilles were “completely safe and quick-opening.” In return, he handed him an envelope.

The next day, every news outlet in the city was reporting on our building. People were shouting Pavel’s name in the streets, and journalists demanded statements from me.

I said only one thing:

— “My children survived not because the system worked, but because people did not abandon one another.”

Andro stayed at home for several weeks. We talked every day, but talking no longer meant returning to that old family. Sometimes we sat in the same room and still felt miles apart.

The hardest moment came when the recording of Pavel’s initial interrogation was played in court. The courtroom fell silent. Pavel lowered his head, but his voice resonated clearly:

“Nothing is going to happen to anyone. A lot can happen before tomorrow.”

Those words felt like a blade turned back on himself. Pavel raised his head and heard how his threats sounded through someone else’s ears for the very first time.

— “I didn’t say it like that,” he whispered.

His attorney looked at him.

— “It is your own voice.”

Pavel could no longer find an answer.

Months later, the court sentenced him to eleven years in prison. The technician received five years. The inspector was stripped of his position, and an investigation into his case continued as well.

I didn’t smile once during any of the hearings.

This was no victory. It was a price paid far too late and far too dear.

Our old apartment was cleared out. Most of the furniture was ruined by water and smoke. In the children’s room, only one wall remained intact, showing where Sasha’s bed used to be—a black, square mark on the floor.

Masha left her photo there. It was a photo taken before the fire, showing the four of us standing in the kitchen. Andro was smiling in the picture, but Masha had written in small letters on the back: “This day was real anyway.”

I didn’t initiate the final separation from Andro. He said to me one evening:

— “You don’t trust me anymore.”

— “I can’t give you trust when you hid the very things I needed to know.”

— “We could start over.”

— “The children can have a new home. But I will not bring them back into an old lie.”

He left. The door closed quietly. This time, there was no smoke behind it.

Three months later, we moved to another city. I rented a small apartment by the river. In the mornings, I worked as an administrator at a school, and in the evenings, I checked Masha’s homework. Sasha soon stopped coughing. She liked closing the window before going to bed, and then she would always ask me:

— “Mom, is the door safe here?”

— “Yes.”

— “Really?”

— “This time, I have the key.”

Masha started drawing. Once, she drew a window whose bars looked inward rather than outward. Below the window stood three small figures, with a large sun above them.

— “Why didn’t you draw the fire?” I asked her.

— “Because it’s already in the past.”

I had no answer to offer. I simply kissed her forehead.

The first snow fell at the end of December. Sasha stood by the window from early morning, drawing round shapes on the glass with her finger. I was boiling the kettle in the kitchen when a message arrived on my phone.

It was Andro.

“I miss you all. I understand everything now. Please, meet me just once.”

I stared at the screen for a long time. The old Ekaterine would probably have answered. She would have started explaining, trying to make her pain understood.

Instead, I already knew that some doors should not open even for forgiveness.

I wrote back:

“The children have peace now. Please do not contact us at home anymore. If you have anything to say, write to me through the attorney.”

Then I deleted the message, set the phone down, and walked to the window.

In my hand was that tiny red hairpin—found beside Sasha’s bed, the only item from that night that the fire couldn’t take away. I had carried it in my bag for months. Now, I set it on the glass sill by the new window in our new home.

Outside, the snow fell softly.

Sasha ran toward it with laughter, and Masha opened the door.

This time, we didn’t need to run.

We were home.