Part 4 — Sara told me that she alone would decide our meetings, but two weeks later she stopped at my door crying and her hand trembled

…the woman was waiting for me in the morning near my house, in front of a small bakery.

It was six o’clock. The city was still sleeping, while the street paving stones gleamed from the night rain. The woman held a paper cup of coffee in her hand, but her fingers were trembling so much that the lid periodically tapped against the edge of the cup.

“I’m Elene,” she told me. “Marco’s wife.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Because the police will not believe everything until they see the documents.”

She opened her bag and placed several folders in front of me.

The first was a complaint received from Marco’s workplace. The second was bank statements. The third was several months of correspondence in which Marco threatened Sara that he would distribute her private photos and tell everyone that she was stealing money.

“Did Sara steal money?” I asked.

Elene shook her head.

“No. Marco stole it. He passed his transfers through Sara’s account. When Sara tried to separate from him, he told her that he would blame her for the crime.”

Coldness spread through my hands.

Then I understood why Sara avoided meetings. It did not justify her betrayal, using me, or the false accusation, but her fear no longer seemed invented for the first time.

“Why didn’t you come before now?” I asked Elene.

“Because I was afraid too. For years Marco told me that if I spoke up, he would take my child away. But when I learned that he had accused you too, I realized that silence was already complicity.”

That same morning my lawyer, Irakli, called me.

“Did you receive the memory card?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t open it alone. Come to the office.”

In his office the curtains were half drawn. On the table lay a small recorder, and beside it were timestamps printed from my card.

Irakli turned on the file.

First Marco’s voice sounded.

“Tell him that he shouted at you while he was at your house.”

Sara’s voice was trembling.

“But that did not happen.”

“That does not change the meaning. If you say that you were afraid, David will have problems with the police.”

“He does not deserve this.”

“Then did you deserve to leave me?”

Then Sara’s crying could be heard. After several seconds she said quietly:

“Okay. I’ll tell him.”

The recording stopped.

No one said a word in the room for a long time.

I was waiting for my own voice, but it was not there. Only Marco’s plans, Sara’s fear, and my name, which had been used for a false accusation.

“Will this be enough?” I asked.

“Enough for the issue of threats and false testimony to be raised. We will add the financial case too.”

“Sara?”

“Sara will also have to give answers. Her fear is understandable, but a lie is still a lie.”

That day Marco called me several times. First he threatened me. Then he apologized. Finally he offered me money if I did not publish the recording.

I saved every call.

In the evening Sara wrote to me: “Please meet me at least once. Marco no longer controls me. Now only you can help me.”

I did not answer.

The next day Marco appeared at the police station, as if I had threatened him. But in his own recording he had left his own voice. He himself said that he forced Sara to make a false accusation, himself mentioned the money, and himself admitted that he had come to my apartment door.

His lawyer withdrew from the case when he saw the financial documents.

“I cannot represent a client in this situation,” he told Marco in the courthouse corridor.

That was the first time Marco stopped smiling.

The final genetic examination of Sara’s child was completed several weeks later. The result was the same: the child belonged to Marco, not to me.

The court issued a restraining order against Marco. A financial investigation began. Sara accepted responsibility for the false statement and agreed to psychological help.

I did not demand revenge against either of them.

I wanted only for them to return my name to me.

The heaviest scene happened not in court, but in Irakli’s office. He played Marco the recording in which Marco said: “If Sara believes David, everything is over.”

Marco sat on the chair and listened to his own voice.

“I did not say that,” he whispered.

Irakli turned off the recorder.

“You said it. You simply did not know then that one day they would make you listen to it.”

Marco lowered his head.

Sara’s apartment was almost empty when I went to take several things. In her bedroom there were only a bed, a lamp, and a photograph left hanging on the wall. In the photograph we stood by the sea, both holding paper cups in our hands, while the wind tossed our hair.

Sara stood at the door.

“You can take it, if you want.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because the person who is in the photograph still exists. He simply no longer lives with you.”

She lowered her head.

Three months later I changed cities.

I rented a small apartment in a new neighborhood, where the morning light fell directly on the kitchen floor. I started a new project at work and played the guitar again in the evenings. I no longer canceled meetings with friends because of someone else’s uncertain plans.

My life did not suddenly become happy.

It simply was no longer constant waiting.

Elene called me sometimes. She told me that her children were calm and that the case connected with Marco was moving slowly, but forward.

Several weeks later Sara gave birth to a child. Once she sent me a short message from the hospital: “It’s a girl. She is well.”

I wrote to her: “I’m glad she is well. I wish you peace.”

Nothing more.

Six months later my niece, Niniko, stayed with me. She attached a colorful sheet of paper to the refrigerator. On it she had drawn the door of my new apartment, and in front of it a small yellow sun.

“Is this you?” I asked.

“No,” she answered me. “This is your home. You are inside because now you are no longer afraid.”

The child’s words struck me more strongly than any court decision.

That same evening I received another message from Sara.

“I have finally freed myself from Marco. I am also receiving treatment. If you are ever able, I want us to start again. This time I will do everything correctly.”

I looked at the message for a long time.

Then I answered calmly:

“I wish you to put everything in order correctly with yourself. As for me, I am beginning my life again — without you.”

Sara did not write to me again.

The first snow came at the end of December. In the morning I opened the window and saw a white layer on the balcony. I hung in the kitchen the old wooden clock that had remained to me from my grandfather. Its cracked chime still rang a little late, but now this no longer irritated me.

Niniko’s drawing lay on the table.

The phone was silent.

I no longer waited for someone to want to see me.

The clock struck.

This time I smiled.

For the first time, time was on my side.