Part 4 — I took an elderly neighbor woman into my home, and her relatives accused me of wrongdoing, but everyone around fell silent when they heard me whisper.

Part 4

That night, Igor called me six times.

I didn’t answer the first call.

On the second, I turned off the phone.

On the third, Nodar told me: — “Don’t pick up anymore. He’s losing control now, and people like that become the most dangerous.”

Ana Sergeyevna was lying in the clinic room. Beside her stood the green bird cup I had brought from the house. The tea had gone cold, but she still held it with both hands.

— “He might come again,” she said.

— “Let him come.”

— “I don’t want anything to happen to you because of me.”

— “My whole life, others decided what would happen. Now we decide.”

At two in the morning, Igor sent a text message. “If you don’t withdraw the application by morning, I will tell everyone that you are using an old woman for her property.”

Nodar read the text and set the phone on the table. — “This is already a threat.”

— “Let it stay.”

— “Why?”

— “Because just once, I want his own words to return to him.”

In the morning, we went to the police. With the doctor’s permission, Ana Sergeyevna sat in a wheelchair. Nodar held copies of the documents in his hand, while I kept the small wooden box in my pocket.

Igor was already waiting for us there.

Beside him stood an attorney—a man in a suit whose face wore exhaustion and clear embarrassment.

— “My client states that Luka is putting pressure on an elderly woman,” he said.

— “Your client was threatening me to demand I drop the application,” I replied.

Nodar handed the messages over to the investigator.

Igor’s attorney immediately spoke up: — “At this stage, I can no longer represent him.”

Igor looked at him. — “What do you mean, you can’t?”

— “It means you deliberately hid facts from me.”

— “This is my family!”

— “Which is precisely why you should have thought before making threats.”

Igor stepped back against the wall. The clock hanging on the wall struck twelve times.

Then Nodar turned on an audio recording for the investigator.

Igor’s own voice echoed through the room: “If the old woman doesn’t return today, I will sue you, finish you off, and tell everyone you kidnapped her for the apartment.”

The recording lasted a few seconds.

A silence fell over the room so heavy that I could hear the hum of car tires passing outside.

Igor couldn’t utter a word.

He listened to himself as if those were another man’s words. When the recording finished, his shoulders slumped.

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

— “You said it,” I answered. “You just heard how it sounded for the very first time.”

The investigator asked him several questions. Igor kept changing his answers, tangling his words, blaming his mother, then his aunt, and finally labeling everything my “manipulation.”

But his voice no longer convinced anyone.

That same day, Elene Sergeyevna’s former secretary, Sofio, came to see us. In her hand, she held a small memory card from an old video camera.

— “I kept this recording for six years,” she said. “I didn’t dare release it. I was afraid.”

— “Why did you gather the courage now?” I asked.

— “Because Ana Sergeyevna is alive, and you are with her.”

Nodar played the recording.

An elderly woman appeared on the screen. Elene Sergeyevna looked much weaker than I remembered. A bookshelf stood behind her.

“Ana, if you are watching this, I probably can no longer come to you. I didn’t take your child because you didn’t want a baby. I took him because I wanted to cover my debts by selling your apartment. I left the boy at an orphanage. I forged your signature on the documents. Yakob helped me.”

Ana Sergeyevna reached her hand toward the screen.

— “Who is Yakob?” I asked.

Sofio lowered her eyes.

— “Yakob was the notary at the time. He is now Igor’s father-in-law.”

Everything suddenly fell into place. Why Igor had an attorney prepared so quickly. Why he knew about Ana Sergeyevna’s property. Why he feared Nodar’s documents.

In the video, Elene continued: “Igor knew nothing until he turned twenty-one. Then he learned from me that the apartment could be left to him if Ana Sergeyevna lost her mind. If Luka ever appears, do not try to stop him.”

The recording ended.

Ana Sergeyevna sat in silence for a long time.

— “My whole life I waited for my sister,” she said. “Now I know that only my property was waiting for her.”

I sat down next to her.

— “You were still her sister.”

— “And you were still my son.”

That same week, the court transferred temporary guardianship of Ana Sergeyevna to an independent social worker, as she explicitly stated that she did not trust Igor. The old forgery case was opened as a separate criminal investigation. Yakob was summoned for questioning, and Igor was issued a protective order so he could no longer approach our house.

I didn’t rejoice in his fear.

But I didn’t run to reassure him either.

Ana Sergeyevna returned home three weeks later. Not to her old house, but to my home, in the room where I had first placed her. We hung an old photo of her on the wall. In the photo stood a young woman in a white dress holding a little child in her arms.

That child was me.

Sofio had found the picture in an old album.

Only one thing remained empty in the room: her old house across the street. The windows were dusty. The green bird cup no longer stood in the kitchen, because it was now with us.

The first months proved difficult. Ana Sergeyevna would wake up at night and sometimes couldn’t understand where she was.

— “Am I at the orphanage again?” she asked me once.

— “No. You are home.”

— “Who are you?”

I held her hand.

— “Luka.”

She looked at me for a long time.

— “It’s a good name.”

— “You named me.”

— “Then tell me once more.”

— “I am Luka. Your son.”

Sometimes she remembered. Sometimes she didn’t. But I was no longer angry. It took me thirty-one years to come into her life. I could endure a few seconds of patience.

Three months later, I began working remotely for a small town medical center. In the morning, I sat by the window, switched on the computer, and checked my mother’s medications.

Ana Sergeyevna sat at the table drawing.

At first, she drew only circles. Then flowers. Finally, she drew a single small green bird.

— “Is this me?” I asked.

— “No,” she smiled. “It’s the one who returned home.”

In December, the first snow arrived. Everything in the yard turned quietly white. I opened the window, cold air drifted in, and I adjusted Ana Sergeyevna’s blanket.

— “Did you like snow?” I asked.

— “I loved you,” she answered.

— “You didn’t know me back then.”

— “Mothers sometimes know their children even before seeing their faces.”

Six months later, I received a letter from Igor. It was short. “Luka, I made mistakes. I want to meet. Not because of my mother. Just to explain everything.”

I placed the letter on the kitchen table. Ana Sergeyevna sat by the window, coloring a green bird with a pencil.

— “Do you want to go?” she asked.

— “No.”

— “Are you sure?”

— “For the first time, I am.”

I folded the letter in half and tossed it into the trash bin.

I wasn’t forgiving him for what I hadn’t done. I simply stopped carrying his fear.

That same evening at nine o’clock, I pulled the chair up to my mother’s bed once again. The green bird cup stood beside her, and tiny frost patterns formed on the window.

— “Will you tell me again?” she asked me.

I held her hand.

— “Again.”

— “Even if I forget?”

— “Even then.”

I leaned down and whispered into her ear:

— “Mom, I am right here.”

This time, she didn’t close her eyes.

Her fingers held fast to my hand.

On the window sill, the green bird stood quietly.

I had returned home for the very first time.