My Mother Screamed When I Touched Her in the Bathroom, While Downstairs My Brother Smiled Strangely and Fell Silent at Once

My mother let out such a scream when I touched her in the bathroom that the glass fell from my hand and shattered on the floor.

All this happened on the eve of her sixty-eighth birthday, when, after a six-hour journey, I suddenly arrived at our old house. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. The sun was out, but all the curtains were drawn, as if someone in the house were afraid of daylight.

Chloe opened the door for me. She was wearing a necklace decorated with precious stones around her neck and had such a smile, as if I had come not as a guest, but as an uninvited witness.

“You could have called beforehand,” she told me, gripping the doorknob more tightly. “Your mother gets confused easily.”

“It is still possible to visit one’s own mother on her birthday without prior notice,” I replied.

Chloe said nothing. She only stepped aside.

Mother was standing in the hallway. She was wearing a warm wool coat, even though the air in the house was heavy and warm. In three months she had become so thin, as if all the strength had been drained from her body. Her hair had fallen loose in silver strands, and on her finger she wore a little pearl ring—the one Father had given her on their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

“Mother?” I said quietly.

Her eyes immediately filled with tears, but she did not come toward me. She hugged me only when Chloe went into the kitchen. Her body was trembling.

“You are very thin,” I told her.

“I am fine, my child,” she replied, although her voice was lower than a whisper.

That evening, at nine o’clock, Julian seated me in the living room and brought out folders. The wall clock showed six. On the table lay medicine bottles, shopping receipts, and bank statements.

“We have given up everything to care for her,” he said. “I reduced my work, and Chloe devoted almost her entire life to it.”

“Why is Mother wearing a coat in the house?” I asked.

Chloe smiled coldly.

“People often feel cold when they are old. You do not know this because you have not been here.”

Julian took a copy of the power of attorney from the folder.

“Mother voluntarily gave me the right to manage her finances. And you have been busy with your career for years. Do not play the role of a caring daughter now.”

His words struck me in the heart, but I did not show it on my face. When Father died, Julian told everyone as if I had chosen to stay in the city and work, and had abandoned Mother. That lie lived for so long that sometimes even I began to doubt myself.

“You are right,” I said calmly. “While I am here, I want to help.”

That night, at nine o’clock, I offered to bathe Mother. The bathroom door was half open, the tap was dripping, and the shadows of blue flowers moved across the tiles.

“I can manage by myself,” Mother whispered.

“I know. I will simply be with you.”

When I touched the buttons of her coat, Mother stepped back as if I were holding a knife.

“Please, do not undress me!” she screamed.

The glass fell onto the floor. Julian’s voice came from outside.

“Is everything all right?”

Mother put a finger to her lips.

“Lock the door,” she told me. “Please, before he comes back.”

I turned on the shower so that our voices would not get outside. Then I slowly took off the coat. Dark bruises were visible on her shoulders. Deep marks from ropes circled her wrists, and old yellowish and new purple bruises overlapped across her back.

My breath caught.

“Who did this to you?”

Mother lowered her head.

“Julian… when I ask about the account, he ties me to the bed. Chloe beats me when I refuse to sign their papers… Please, do not say anything. They will say that I no longer have my memory.”

“Why did you not call me?”

“Julian smashed it. He told me that you would not have time for me. And Chloe frightened me by saying they would lock me in an institution.”

Then she told me that the cottage by the lake had been sold, two investment accounts had been emptied, and she had been made to sign a new will.

Then fear gave way to something else.

I photographed her wounds, recorded her words, and asked precisely where, when, and by whom for each answer. Then I picked up the phone and called Judge Thorne.

“Your Honor,” I said quietly, “I am Elena Vance, an assistant to the attorney general. I need an emergency protective order tonight. But first you need to know what I found in this house…”

Before I could wait for an answer, the lock on the door turned from outside and Julian’s shadow fell across the floor. Mother gripped my hand, while I took a dark green folder from my bag and touched its clasp with my fingers…

The dark green folder belonged to Father. He always said that important papers should be kept in a place where a thief looked for money and not memories. The folder had been with me for six years, but until that night I had never opened it.

On the other side of the door, Julian lowered the handle.

“Mother, why did you lock the door?” he asked. “Elena, are you here?”

Mother’s hands were trembling so much that her pearl ring touched her teeth.

“Tell him I am lying down,” she told me quietly.

“Julian, Mother felt dizzy. We will talk tomorrow.”

“Open it right now.”

That calm confidence was no longer heard in his voice. For the first time I noticed fear. Perhaps he realized that I no longer saw Mother as a confused old woman.

“Why?” I asked. “Do you have something to hide?”

Silence fell for several seconds.

“You are a guest in this house, Elena.”

“And in Mother’s room, she is the only person who can make decisions.”

“You do not know what you are doing.”

“I know exactly what I am doing.”

Mother lowered her eyes. I put the folder on the bed and saved the phone recording. At nine eighteen, Judge Thorne called me.

“Ms. Vance, your position gives the matter importance, but not without evidence,” she told me. “Can you describe the victim’s condition?”

“I am recording her testimony. There are visible injuries in various places on her body. Her handwriting is damaged, but her mind is clear. She specifically names the incidents of violence.”

“Emergency protection will take effect in twenty minutes. I am sending the police. Until then, do not confront the suspected abusers.”

“They are in this house.”

“Then you will have to buy time. And one more thing, Elena, do not touch the financial documents until they are officially seized.”

The call ended.

Chloe appeared at the door. Julian had apparently opened the lock with a spare key. A gold earring shone in her ear, but her eyes were not smiling.

“Mother needs to rest,” she said.

“She needs a doctor.”

“You are not a doctor.”

“Neither are you a guardian if Mother signed her consent under coercion.”

Chloe’s color changed.

“How dare you?”

Julian raised a hand to stop her.

“Elena, come downstairs. We will sort all this out calmly.”

“Mother is staying with me.”

“That is impossible. The doctor said moving her was dangerous.”

“Which doctor?”

He did not answer.

At that moment Mother looked toward the wall. A small wooden cross hung at the head of the bed. Beneath it, almost imperceptibly, the paint on the wall was bulging.

“Elena,” she said, “Father knew.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before he died, he told me that if I ever became afraid of Julian, I should give you what he had hidden in the wall.”

Julian turned sharply.

“Mother, be quiet!”

This was the first time I heard real panic in his voice.

Chloe rushed toward the wall, but I stood in front of her.

“Do not touch it.”

“This is my house,” she shouted.

“No. This is my mother’s house.”

The protective message sent by the judge arrived on my phone just then. The police were on their way. Julian looked at the screen and his face turned rigid.

“You really did this?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“You are family.”

“That is exactly why I came.”

A heavy impact sounded from downstairs. I went to the window and saw a black car brake in front of the house. Two police officers got out, and behind them came an older woman carrying a medical bag.

Julian looked toward the door. Then toward Mother.

“If you open that folder, you will lose everything,” he told me.

“Who is she?”

“Father trusted her, but not you.”

Mother pointed under the bed. A small metal box lay there. The lock was old, but there were scratches from Julian’s fingers on it.

The police officers knocked on the door.

“Open the door! We have a temporary court order!”

Chloe leaned against the wall. Julian covered his face with both hands.

I picked up the metal box and opened the green folder. On the very first page I recognized Father’s handwriting. Below it was one sentence that Julian had avoided reading all his life…

Father’s handwriting was slightly slanted, but the letters were clearly legible.

“If this letter has reached you, Elena, it means that your mother has already lost the right to believe everyone.”

Julian stood by the door. The police officers were on both sides of him, while Chloe had sat down by the wall. Only Mother’s heavy breathing could be heard in the room.

“Read it aloud,” she told me.

Julian shook his head.

“This is an old record. Father was ill before he died.”

“Being ill does not prevent someone from telling the truth,” I replied.

I took a second page from the folder. It had a notary’s seal, bank letters, and a copy of a video recording attached to it. On the edge of the page was a date written by Father: two weeks before his death.

“Father knew that Julian was checking Mother’s accounts,” I said. “He requested an independent audit. It says that Mother’s property could be sold only with her personal consent, and that neither child had the right to manage her money alone.”

“Those documents are forged!” Chloe shouted.

The police officer looked toward her.

“Ma’am, sit down and lower your voice.”

The third page was a bank statement. The lake cottage turned out to have been sold in the same week when Mother had supposedly signed a new voluntary power of attorney. Money from the two accounts first went to Julian’s company, and then to Chloe’s personal account.

Mother closed her eyes.

“They told me the cottage was sold for my treatment,” she said.

“There was no treatment,” I told her. “The money was used for another purpose.”

Julian took a step toward me.

“You do not know how much debt I had.”

“And so you tied Mother to the bed?”

He fell silent.

I played the recording saved on my phone. First my voice could be heard, then Mother’s.

“When I ask about the account, Julian ties my wrists to the bed,” Mother was saying. “Chloe tells me that everyone is forgetting me. Yesterday I could not move for three hours.”

A loud silence fell over the room.

Julian was listening to his own voice, although his voice was not in the recording. His face slowly turned pale.

“This is a secret recording,” Chloe said.

“The recording and photographs made for the victim’s safety will be submitted to the court,” the police officer said. “The doctor will document the injuries immediately.”

The woman who had come with the medical bag examined Mother’s wrists. When her finger touched the purple mark, Mother clenched her teeth.

“This is a new injury,” the doctor said. “There are old ones as well.”

Julian suddenly knelt before Mother.

“Mother, I did not want it to turn out this way.”

Mother looked at him.

“You wanted my money. That is enough.”

Then I realized that I had not yet read the last page of Father’s letter. It said that he had left with the notary not only an old copy of the will, but also a voice recording in which Julian admitted to financial pressure.

My phone rang. An unfamiliar number appeared on the screen.

“Are you Ms. Vance?” a man’s voice asked. “I am an assistant to Notary Mark Hale. The material left by your father was supposed to be opened today, but one person has already come to take it away.”

“Who?”

There was silence on the other end of the line for several seconds.

“He says that he is your mother’s legal guardian and that he also has a court document. However, the judge indicated on the document had not yet been appointed on that date.”

Julian heard the conversation and lowered his eyes.

“Is he here?” I asked.

“No, Ms. Vance. He has already left the office. But we no longer have a copy of the recording.”

Mother gripped my wrist.

“Elena, they got into Father’s safe too.”

“What safe?”

She looked at the cross on the wall.

“He did not leave only one document in the house. The second part is in a bank vault. And if Julian finds it, he will be able to prove that I…”

Mother could not finish the sentence. A new message arrived on the phone. The sender was listed as the bank security service.

“Your family’s vault-opening request has been received. The visitor is already in the building.”

Julian smiled for the first time.

“You came too late, Elena,” he said. “The real battle is only beginning…”