Part 4 — When I Rudely Answered a Woman Who Came to Work at the Workshop, One Look from Her Turned My Life Upside Down

Elene’s last words were still sounding in the phone when a car engine started outside the warehouse.

June immediately picked up the recorder.

“We have to go.”

“Where?”

“Where we will officially hand all this over.”

That night, for the first time, I no longer tried to run away from Martin. On the contrary, I entered the police station, held the voice recorder with both hands, and told the investigator everything: the box, the forged signature, the bank call, and Elene’s information.

At four in the morning, calls came to my phone one after another.

The first was from the bank.

The second was from Martin’s lawyer.

The third was from Martin himself.

“Beckett, this case is bigger than me,” he told me, as always, as if he were doing me a favor. “If you back down now, you will still have a chance to save the workshop.”

“And June?”

“That girl will get nothing.”

“She is my partner’s daughter.”

A long silence fell.

“You know nothing about what your father did.”

“I have already listened.”

Martin’s voice changed.

“The recording may be forged.”

“Will you also say that your voice is forged?”

This time he did not answer.

Elene did not hurry us to court. First she sent the documents to the bank, then handed the audio recording to an independent expert, and afterward compared all of Martin’s statements with one another. It turned out that during the last six months he had used three different signatures in different agencies.

But I remembered something else most strongly.

Martin’s lawyer refused to defend him.

“I did not know that my client had this recording,” he said in the office. “And now I cannot prove that I did not know the rest as well.”

Martin struck the table with his fist.

“You are my lawyer!”

“I was.”

“I will pay you double.”

“This is no longer a question of money.”

That same day the investigator summoned us to a room where there was a large screen. I wanted only to listen to the recording and leave, but the investigator opened another file.

My own workshop appeared on the screen.

The camera was recording at three in the morning. Martin entered through the rear door, took a key from his pocket, and bent over my table. Then he changed the bank documents.

Another man stood beside him.

I recognized him.

“This is my accountant.”

“Yes,” said the investigator. “He has already given a statement to us.”

Martin’s voice could be heard clearly on the screen.

“Beckett will not understand anything. His father did not find out for twenty-two years either.”

With my own ears I heard the person whom I had called uncle in childhood say that my unawareness was his greatest weapon.

June sat beside me. Her hand lay on the table, and old oil stains were still visible on her fingers.

“Do you understand now?” she asked quietly.

“I understand.”

“You cannot change this.”

“No. But I can stop hiding it.”

Martin was arrested on charges of fraud, document forgery, and threats. The bank suspended the seizure process. The court confirmed Thomas Puiti’s share for June, while Harrison Hollis’s inheritance remained with me only after it was proven that my father had not obtained the property through a crime.

In the courtroom Martin stood several steps away from me. His face was tired, but for the first time he was no longer trying to appear smarter than everyone.

“Beckett,” he told me when the guard passed beside him, “you will still end up alone.”

June looked toward him.

“No. You simply will no longer have the people who called your lies loneliness.”

I wanted to stop June, but I did not stop her.

Several weeks later I emptied my father’s office in the workshop. I took old calendars down from the walls, removed receipts from the drawers, and finally only one empty table remained in the room.

June left her father’s dark-blue apron on its surface.

“This should be with you,” I told her.

“No. Now it belongs to both of us.”

She touched the apron as one touches a sick person’s hand.

“All my life I thought my father had abandoned me.”

“My father thought he would protect me with silence.”

“Silence made both of us lose years.”

“But not all the years.”

June looked at me.

That evening I told her for the first time that I loved her. Not in the workshop, not in the smell of oil, not when she was holding a cutter. Simply in the empty office, where we had nothing left to hide.

She looked at me for a long time.

“Do you still need a wife now?”

I smiled.

“Now I need a person who corrects my jokes in time.”

“That was not in the job description.”

“That is why I did not hire you properly.”

Three months later we changed the workshop sign. The old one said only “Hollis Auto Service.” On the new one we left two surnames: Hollis and Puiti.

Behind the workshop we made a small room where we taught beginner mechanics for free. On the very first day June brought four students from the local college. One of the girls did not dare approach the engine.

“My hands will get dirty,” she said.

June showed her hands.

“That is why you came here.”

I still often forgot lunch. But now it was not only June who brought a sandwich to the table. Sometimes the students left them, with a small note on top: “Do not forget to eat today, boss.”

The first snow came at the end of December.

That morning, before opening the door, June placed her father’s swallow-marked tool on the concrete in front of the workshop. The yellow enamel had almost completely scraped off, but the little bird was still visible.

“It will not lose its owner,” I said.

“No,” she answered. “It simply has more owners now.”

Martin tried to return once more. His lawyer sent me his letter. It said that he regretted everything and wanted to explain his actions at least in one meeting.

I read the letter twice.

Then I wrote an answer.

“I no longer need your explanation. I have already heard the truth. I wish you to learn to be at peace with your own choices.”

Nothing more.

When June saw the letter, she asked me:

“Don’t you want to know why he did it?”

“I knew what I needed to know.”

“And if he regrets it?”

“That is his path. It is no longer mine.”

Months passed. The workshop’s income recovered, but the most important thing was not money. The most important thing was that when I locked the door in the evening, for the first time I was no longer afraid of whether someone would be waiting for me inside.

One Sunday a little boy, my nephew Noah, came to the workshop and drew me a picture with charcoal. On the paper stood two cars, and between them a small house, from whose roof a yellow swallow was flying.

“Is this ours?” I asked.

“It is our workshop,” he told me. “And the swallow shows the way.”

I hung the drawing on the wall.

June stood beside me. There was still oil under her fingernails. And in the pocket of my shirt lay her father’s tool, which that day I was carrying alone for the first time.

We could not regain the lost years.

Nor could we bring back our fathers.

But we could build a new life from their silence.

I locked the door. Outside, snow was slowly falling.

I warmed the swallow in my palm.

This time we chose the path ourselves.