Part 4 — My brother called me a peasant at the wedding, and ten years later he entered my office and his face changed when he saw me

As soon as David finished these words, the office telephone rang.

First one ring.

Then a second.

I did not answer. On the third ring, David gestured to me to answer.

“This is Mariana.”

Julian’s voice sounded. He was trying to speak calmly, but his breathing was rapid.

“Mom, we are with Grandfather. An unfamiliar car was standing by the gate of the house.”

My knees gave way.

“Lock the doors. No one go outside.”

“It has already left. Grandfather wrote down the number.”

Thomas’s father took the phone.

“It was a black van. The number on the back was covered with mud.”

David immediately called his assistant.

“Send the police and private security to the address. Now.”

Adrian stood motionless.

Renata moved away from him.

“Did you do this?” she asked him.

“I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Your voice said everything.”

Adrian looked toward me.

“Mariana, all this can be fixed. Just sign, and the family will no longer be in danger.”

“Are you using my son as part of the negotiation now?”

“I am protecting you.”

“No. You are still trying to frighten me, as you did that day when you turned the whole family against me.”

David turned the phone toward him.

“The police are on their way. Adrian, sit on the chair.”

“You cannot arrest me.”

“Not me. Your own words will arrest you.”

At that moment, the security employee brought in the envelope. It was white, sealed with dark-green wax. My name was written on it in blue pen, but I did not recognize the handwriting. The envelope smelled faintly of dampness and gasoline.

David put on gloves.

“Everything will be recorded on camera.”

“Open it,” I said.

Inside lay a small memory card and one sheet of paper. The paper said: “If you listen to my brother, tomorrow I will know your son’s route too.”

Adrian closed his eyes.

“I did not write it.”

“But you created the fear that made this letter possible,” I said.

David put the card into the computer. The rear yard of the warehouse appeared on the screen. The night camera recorded poorly, though a person could still be seen. He was holding a fuel container. After several seconds, his face became illuminated.

It was Adrian’s financial director.

At the end of the video, he was saying on the phone:

“Mr. Adrian says that if his sister does not surrender, the fire must start today.”

Renata gripped the chair.

“We are finished,” she said.

Adrian stepped backward.

“That was not my order.”

David turned the sound on again. Adrian’s answer sounded in the recording:

“No one needs to mention my name. Just do it.”

Adrian stared at the screen. He heard his own voice from the outside for the first time. His face became gray.

“I… did not say it like that.”

“You did,” Renata replied. “We all heard it.”

The police arrived in ten minutes. Adrian looked toward the door, but two officers were standing there. He looked at Renata.

“Call Father. Tell him this is a mistake.”

Renata shook her head.

“I already called Father. He said he would no longer pay your lawyer.”

“Renata…”

“I stood by your side when you taught me that money solved everything. Today I understood that with money you can only abandon people.”

They put handcuffs on Adrian. I was not happy. When the police officer led him toward the door, I asked only one thing:

“Why did you treat Mother this way for years?”

He did not answer me.

The next day Mother came to my office. In her hand she held an old, folded table napkin, on which the stain of peach juice from that wedding evening was still visible.

“I could not protect you then,” she told me.

“You were afraid too.”

“But fear is not an excuse.”

We sat silently for a long time. For the first time in ten years, I was no longer waiting for anyone to prove my place to someone else.

An investigation against Adrian began. The false invoices, bank transfers, bribes, and the plan to burn the warehouse were proven. His company collapsed. The court sentenced him to imprisonment, but money was not the heaviest thing for him in this story.

The heaviest thing was the lost home.

Renata filed for divorce. Her father’s company reviewed all her accounts and announced that Adrian’s deals had also been hidden from the family. In his old office, where everyone had once made decisions according to his voice, only one thing remained on the desk: the silver-colored wallet that had caught the table on the wedding evening.

David told me that the police had found the item together with the case materials.

I did not take it.

“Leave it,” I asked. “It belongs to his past.”

A few weeks later, our warehouse opened again. The workers painted the walls. We put a new lock on the damaged gate. On the first morning, when the sun shone over the peach boxes, one employee asked me:

“Mrs. Mariana, will we rebuild everything from the beginning?”

“No,” I told him. “We have already built it. Now we are simply continuing.”

Months passed.

When Julian returned from school, he often came directly to the orchard. Once he was holding a sheet of paper. On it he had drawn our house, a large tree beside it, and four people.

“Who is this?” I asked when I noticed a small figure in the corner.

“Grandfather. This is Grandmother. This is you and Dad.”

“Why do I have such big hands?”

“Because you do everything.”

I laughed and stuck the paper on the refrigerator.

Our everyday life changed, but not with noise. At five in the morning I no longer woke up in fear. I woke up with a work plan. I checked the frost forecast, met with producers, read new contracts, and looked over Julian’s homework in the evening.

“Bright Land” built a new warehouse. The families who had once expected to lose their jobs because of Adrian’s decisions worked there. For me, paying their wages on time became more important than any profit indicator.

One morning, almost a year later, I received a letter from Adrian. My address was written on the envelope, but this time I did not open it immediately.

He wrote that he was sorry.

He wrote that in prison he had seen everything differently.

He wrote that only I could restore his name.

At the end there was one sentence: “We are still one family.”

Thomas read the letter and asked me:

“Do you want us to answer?”

I looked at the orchard through the window. The first snow was falling. White flakes fell onto the peach branches, and the trees looked as though they had calmly waited for this silence all year.

“Yes,” I told him. “But only once.”

On a sheet of paper I wrote: “You were my brother. I tried for years to save you. Now I will no longer take responsibility for your choices. I wish that one day you become a person capable of seeing himself.”

I sent the letter.

No answer came.

That evening Julian came to me and took his drawing down from the refrigerator.

“Mom, should we take this drawing to the new house?”

“Of course.”

“Then where should we hang it?”

I looked at the drawing. I had large hands in it, but for the first time this no longer seemed like a burden to me.

“Where the first light will enter in the morning.”

I stood by the warehouse window. From my pocket I took out a small wooden card on which, years earlier, it had said: “The first harvest of your new family.” Its edges were worn, though the letters could still be read.

I placed the card in the new office, beside my desk.

It was snowing outside.

Inside, there was the smell of peaches.

And for the first time I understood that family is not the place from which you want not to be expelled.

Family is the place that you build yourself.

And I already had mine.