I Found My Wife in the Yard When I Returned Home After Four Years, but My Mother’s Smile Suddenly Lost Its Color

My mother hid the golden hummingbird pendant at that very moment when I entered the yard and Elena was gathering the fragments. I spent four years in Canada, but returning to that house still seemed like a visit from a ghost. In front of me stood my wife, her head completely shaved, her face sunken, and her hands trembling so much that she could barely touch the pieces of the broken plate.

“She must not appear before the guests in this condition,” Paula’s voice came from the terrace.

My sister twirled the keys to a new car around her finger. The car shone in the yard, the windows were new, and the stone surface of the kitchen reflected the sun. Elena, meanwhile, wore worn-out slippers and had an old piece of cloth wrapped around her knees.

I stopped at the gate.

In Alberta, I worked twelve hours a day at a welding factory. I rented a small apartment with two men, prepared my food in advance, and every month transferred from two to almost three thousand euros to my mother’s account. I believed that this money would be used for Elena’s treatment, finishing the house, and our future. In four years I sent more than one hundred thousand euros.

I had not asked for a single receipt.

I trusted my mother.

During video calls Elena always repeated that she was fine. In the last months she no longer turned on the camera.

“The phone is broken, Marcos,” she would tell me quietly. “Don’t worry.”

Now I understood why she did not want to frighten me.

“Elena, get up,” Paula said. “If you are asking for food, first earn the right to live here.”

Elena leaned against the wall and barely stood up.

“I only want to go to the doctor,” she said. “I need to continue the treatment.”

Teresa came out of the house. A golden hummingbird hung around her neck. I recognized it immediately. It was the gift for my and Elena’s fifth wedding anniversary. The money I had saved in Canada by working extra shifts had been put into that little bird.

“Don’t start again,” Teresa told her. “My son transfers money to my account, and I decide how it is spent.”

“But this is my money,” Elena’s voice broke.

“You got sick; everyone’s life cannot be ruined.”

Elena looked at the car, the new windows, and Paula’s beauty salon.

“I need it only for treatment.”

“You should have thought about it before getting sick,” Teresa replied coldly.

My suitcase made a heavy sound on the floor.

All three fell silent.

Paula’s smile slid from her face. Teresa covered the pendant with her hand. Elena looked at me as if she had thought I had been dead for four years and had suddenly returned before her.

I walked toward her and carefully took her by the shoulders.

“What happened to you?”

Elena lowered her eyes.

“I have cancer. It has already been eleven months.”

Something collapsed inside me, but I said nothing aloud. I looked at the television, the new floor, the car, the shining kitchen. Then I looked at her worn-out slippers.

“How many visits did you pay for with the money I sent?”

“Many,” Teresa said immediately.

“Two,” Elena corrected quietly.

Teresa stood in the doorway.

“Where will you take her now? You were absent for four years and suddenly became a caring husband?”

I took Elena’s hand.

“To the hospital.”

“She will not set foot outside this house until we find out what you intend to do!” Paula shouted.

I took out my phone. Seventeen missed calls and a message received on the airplane were visible on the screen. I did not yet know how to tell them that the biggest amount of money of my life was written in that message.

Teresa smiled again.

“What do you have that is so urgent?”

I looked at the screen and said:

“I was going to postpone it until tomorrow, but now I will not wait any longer. My lawyer is already on the way and…”

“…my lawyer is already on the way and we must discuss the compensation approved for my account,” I finished.

A momentary surprise appeared on Teresa’s face, but soon she regained that same old, calm expression.

“Compensation?” Paula chuckled. “How much is it, that you are frightening us like this?”

“One million euros.”

Such silence fell over the yard that I clearly heard the sound of a bus coming from the street. Elena’s fingers loosened in my hand. Teresa’s gaze first stopped on me, then moved to the golden hummingbird.

“This is our family’s money,” she said.

“I do not yet know whose it is.”

“You yourself sent everything to my account.”

“Because I thought you were keeping it for Elena.”

“I looked after the house, helped Paula, paid the bills…”

“And Elena’s treatment?”

Teresa could not answer.

I put my hand on Elena’s shoulder. A thin scar showed under the skin of her neck. I had never noticed it before. For four years I had looked at my own wife’s face on a small phone screen and had not seen the truth.

We went to the hospital that same evening. In the old city clinic, at seven in the evening, Doctor Nata spread Elena’s test results across the table. The papers were fastened with a small metal clip and smelled of medicine at the corners.

“The treatment was interrupted twice,” the doctor told me. “The reason is listed as inability to pay.”

“But I sent money every month.”

The doctor looked at Elena.

“We could not receive the money. The transfers had to come from another account.”

Elena lowered her eyes.

“Mother told me that the money was arriving late.”

“How many times did you ask me for help?” I asked.

“Many times. But Teresa told me that I was spending too much and that you would get angry.”

My ears were buzzing. A white light flickered in the corridor. I heard the doctor’s words, but each of them fell into my heart like a heavy stone.

At ten in the evening my lawyer, Irakli, came to the clinic. He held a dark-brown folder in his hand, with raindrops shining on its corners.

“Do not tell them the full truth yet,” he told me. “Until we have evidence.”

“I already know enough.”

“No, Marcos. You know that the money disappeared. You do not yet know how.”

He opened the folder and handed me several statements.

“I received this data from the bank today. Not the official statement of the account. A hidden attached account.”

Elena raised herself from the bed.

“Hidden?”

Irakli nodded.

“Your transfers entered Teresa’s account, and then the money was divided among several different accounts. One for Paula’s salon. The second for a construction company. And the third… we have not yet been able to open it completely.”

“Whose was it?” I asked.

Irakli closed the folder.

“That is exactly what we must find out before them.”

The next morning we returned home. Teresa sat in the living room, coffee on the table, and behaved as if the previous day had not existed. Paula held a new phone in her hand.

“Transfer the compensation money directly into my account,” Teresa told me. “While you have a sick wife, you cannot make financial decisions.”

“Why?”

“Because you were not here. We carried the burden of this family.”

Irakli looked at his watch.

“Mrs. Teresa, by this afternoon we will have the complete statement from the bank.”

Teresa’s coffee cup froze in her hand.

“Are you threatening me?”

“No. I am warning you.”

I looked at Elena. In her eyes, for the first time, I saw not fear but a small, cautious hope.

But that same evening my phone was called by an unknown number. A man told me in a quiet voice that if I did not sign away the compensation, they would erase all the documents concerning Elena’s treatment and we would lose our only house as well.

“Who are you?” I asked.

In response I heard only this:

“When you see the third account in the statement, it will already be too late…”

The call ended.

“When you see the third account in the statement, it will already be too late… The call ended.”

For several seconds I looked at the phone. The unknown number was still glowing on the screen, as if the man’s voice had remained there.

“Who was it?” Elena asked me.

“I don’t know.”

Irakli took the phone from me and checked the number.

“It is a prepaid number. But the call was recorded.”

At ten in the morning we were sitting in the bank’s meeting room. On the table lay a white folder, two cups of cold coffee, and a bundle of stamped statements. The bank manager, Mrs. Ketevan, closed the door.

“These documents are given only to the account holder and his authorized representative,” she said.

“The account is in my mother’s name,” I answered. “But the money came from my transfers.”

Irakli placed a temporary court order on the table.

“Regarding these funds, Marcos is now the authorized representative.”

Ketevan handed us the statements.

The first page showed my transfers. On the same day every month. Then, two or three days later, almost the entire amount disappeared from the account.

“This is the initial capital for Paula’s salon,” Irakli said, pointing to one entry. “And this is the down payment for the new car.”

Elena held her breath.

The third account had been opened in the same bank, under a different surname. But the recipient’s address turned out to be our home address.

Ketevan took out another sheet.

“Money was transferred to this account every time a payment request was sent from Elena’s clinic.”

I read the recipient’s name.

Teresa Morales.

“It is my mother’s second account,” I said.

“Not only hers,” Irakli said quietly. “Paula is listed here as a co-signer.”

Beside me Elena sat like a stone. Her hand gripped the edge of the table.

“So they divided the money for my treatment between themselves?” she asked.

Ketevan lowered her head.

“The purpose of the transfers says ‘family needs.’ But the money then went toward the salon rent, the car loan, and one private construction company.”

Irakli took out the last sheet.

“This is the main thing.”

There was an application for the transfer of ownership of the house. Several months earlier Teresa had signed a document as if the house had been transferred to Paula. My name was also written below the signature.

“I did not sign this,” I said.

“I know,” Irakli answered. “You were in Canada. A copy of your passport is from the same file that contained only your old documents.”

At that moment everything became clear. They were not only spending my money. They were also taking our house and leaving Elena on the street.

That same afternoon Teresa and Paula came to the bank. Teresa was still wearing the golden hummingbird, but now its chain was trembling.

“This is a family matter,” she said. “Do not humiliate us in front of strangers.”

“I worked in a foreign country for four years so that I could help the family,” I answered. “And you hid the money for my wife’s treatment from her.”

Paula leaned forward.

“You could not have saved Elena anyway.”

Pain passed across Elena’s face, but this time she did not lower her head.

“You do not decide that,” she said.

Irakli placed the phone on the table and turned on the recording. The unknown man’s voice sounded:

“If Marcos does not sign, we will erase all of Elena’s documents…”

Teresa’s face went pale.

“What is this?” Paula asked.

I looked at Irakli.

“Who is behind this voice?”

Irakli was silent for several seconds before answering. Then he opened a second folder.

“The voice recording is only the beginning. The owner of this number is a lawyer acquainted with your family. And yesterday morning he did one more thing. He filed a report with the police claiming that Marcos had threatened Teresa’s life…”

Teresa lowered her eyes for the first time.

But he did not yet know the worst—the same report was accompanied by a video that had been recorded four years earlier, in this yard…