Part 4 — Father Left Houses to My Brothers, but Burdened Me with Mother’s Life — Yet My Brother’s Smile Suddenly Disappeared

James had barely finished speaking when Daniel’s phone rang.

He looked at the screen and immediately rejected the call.

It rang a second time.

This time he did not answer.

“Who is it?” Eric asked.

“I don’t know.”

But his voice said everything.

James asked the accountant to send him the documents. A few seconds later, his computer lit up. Only the clicking of the keyboard could be heard in the room.

I sat beside Mother and held her hand. Her fingers were still cold, but they were no longer trembling.

“The money was withdrawn from the account in three parts,” James said. “One transfer went to Daniel’s company account. The second went toward the loan connected to Eric’s new house. The third was used to start Tyler’s business.”

Tyler raised his head.

“I didn’t know it was Father’s money.”

“You recognized the money,” I said.

He lowered his eyes.

Daniel stood up from his chair.

“This is all a mistake. Father transferred it to me himself.”

James looked at him calmly.

“Father was already dead at that time.”

Daniel’s face went pale.

The air in the room grew heavy.

Soon all of them needed their own lawyers. Eric’s lawyer told him on the very first day that signed bank documents existed against him and that he had to prepare to return the money.

Tyler’s lawyer said directly:

“If you sign another document at another meeting without reading it, I will refuse to defend you.”

Daniel tried the longest to regain control.

He called me at 23:08.

“Rachel, we are family.”

“You remember the word family only when you need something.”

“You can stop the case.”

“I did not start it.”

“Are you doing this because of Mother?”

“Because of Mother, I had been doing everything for years. Now I am doing the truth.”

He exhaled quietly.

“Father did not want this to end like this for us.”

“Father did not want you to leave Mother on the street.”

I ended the call.

Three days later Daniel was summoned to the police station. Eric received a notice that same day. The criminal case ultimately moved into an investigation, because the transfers had been confirmed and the recording of Mother’s pressure contained their voices clearly.

I did not go to attend the interrogation.

But I still heard Daniel’s conversation.

James told me that I had to prepare in my room and listen to the audio recording. There was a small speaker in his office. The recording began.

“If you don’t sign, we’ll blame Rachel…”

It was Daniel’s voice.

It was so calm, confident, and familiar that for the first time I understood how often I had made excuses for him.

Mother’s voice could also be heard in the recording.

“Daniel, this is your father’s house.”

“Now we have to decide what happens.”

“No. This is my house.”

Then the door slammed.

The recording ended.

Daniel heard his own words himself, but what changed him most was that he could no longer answer. Mother was sitting there. I was standing there. And he could no longer blame his voice on illness, exhaustion, or context.

Within a few weeks, the court upheld the fund. Part of the money was used for Mother’s medical and housing expenses, while the remainder was blocked according to law until the investigation into the transfers was complete.

Daniel and Eric had to sell their houses.

Tyler kept his business because he had not signed any illegal document, although he returned part of the money he had received.

Mother chose a small, bright apartment near the river. It had two large windows, and in the morning the light from the water moved through the room.

I went to work four days a week, and stayed with Mother on the fifth. I was no longer the only one caring for her. A caregiver hired from the fund came in the morning, visits to the doctor were scheduled in advance, and I no longer waited for the nighttime call that used to freeze my whole body.

For the first time, I returned to my own life.

The room where Mother’s suitcase had stood remained empty. For several months I did not dare pass through it. But one day I stopped at the door and saw the small metal clasp from the old suitcase on the floor.

Mother had left it behind.

I picked up the clasp and placed it on the windowsill.

Then I noticed that Father’s lavender sprig, which had lain in the glass jar all this time, had completely broken apart. It no longer had any smell. Only fine dust remained.

I told Mother that I should throw away the jar.

“No,” she told me. “Leave it. This smell must not belong to pain anymore.”

In spring she planted lavender on the small balcony.

The first green leaves appeared in May.

That same month my seven-year-old nephew, Luka, came to Mother. He was Tyler’s son and saw everything differently from the adults. He was holding a drawing.

In the drawing, four people stood in one house. One had a large yellow sun drawn above his head, and another held a teacup.

“Is this you?” I asked.

“No, Grandmother,” Luka said. “This is both of you. Because now you live together, but you do not belong to each other.”

Mother looked at him and smiled.

And for the first time I realized that love and duty had not been the same thing.

In the summer Daniel sent me a letter. It contained only four sentences.

“I want to talk to you. Everything has gone too far. Mother needs you, and we can start over too.”

I placed the letter on the kitchen table.

Mother did not ask what I planned to do.

I silently looked at the paper for several minutes. Before, I would have called immediately after receiving such a letter, explained, calmed everyone down, and somehow reconciled us all.

Now I picked up the phone and sent a short reply:

“Starting over is possible only when you no longer hide the past. I will not do this for you anymore.”

Then I blocked the number.

It was not revenge.

It was a door that I closed with my own hand for the first time.

In autumn, the lavender on Mother’s balcony was already blooming purple. Every morning I watered it, then made coffee and sat by her window. The city noise came from far away. No one called me anymore in a commanding tone. No one reminded me that Father had supposedly decided my life in advance.

One morning Mother held out a small jar to me.

Inside it was only one fresh sprig of lavender.

“This is for you,” she told me.

“Why?”

“Because this time you chose for yourself where to put it.”

I took the sprig home and placed it on my desk. The first snow could be seen through the window. White flakes fell slowly over the city, as if covering everything with a new page.

I looked at the lavender sprig on the desk.

Its smell no longer choked me.

Now it resembled freedom.

And for the first time in my entire life, when I closed the door, I was waiting for no one.