Part 4 — On my daughter’s wedding day, my daughter chose to stay home, and a month later she looked at Rick and her smile disappeared

Rick did not answer the call.

The mobile phone was trembling on the table, and one name kept lighting up on the screen: “Giorgi.”

Ana froze.

“Who is this?” I asked.

Rick covered the phone with his hand.

“No one.”

Mariam opened the envelope. Inside were a small memory card, several printed messages, and a hotel registration sheet. Rick’s signature could be seen on the sheet.

“Giorgi is Rick’s brother,” Ana said quietly.

Rick looked at her.

“You do not know him.”

“I saw his car that night.”

We turned on the recording.

Giorgi’s voice was heard:

“Rick, this has already gone too far.”

Rick answered:

“You promised yourself that you would erase the camera.”

“I only helped you make sure Nino was not at home.”

“Then help me to the end.”

The other voice snickered.

“If the girl goes to the police, they will arrest both of us.”

Silence fell over the room.

Rick struck the chair with his hand.

“This is fabricated.”

Mariam calmly opened her laptop.

“The recording has time, device, and location data. We have already independently obtained the video from the camera. The messages are also linked to your number.”

“Who are you to threaten me in my own house?” Rick shouted.

“I was your lawyer,” Mariam replied, “until I realized that you were asking me not to protect the truth, but to hide a crime.”

This was the first minute when Rick truly lost control.

He picked up the phone and called Giorgi.

“Come here now.”

There was no answer.

“Do you hear me? Come here!”

Only one phrase was heard from the other side:

“I am already going to the police.”

Rick dropped the phone from his hand.

An hour later there was another knock at the door. This time two investigators stood on the threshold. They calmly read the warrant and asked Rick to put his hands forward.

“Nino, this is a mistake,” he told me.

I was standing at the door.

“No. The mistake was that I believed you.”

“I was trying for your love.”

“Love is not called breaking down a door and threatening.”

Rick looked at Ana.

“You will regret this.”

Ana stood behind me.

“I already regret it. That I did not say it earlier.”

The police took him away. Giorgi came forward on his own the next day and admitted that he had helped Rick erase the camera recordings and had deliberately prolonged Nino’s being away from home on the wedding day. He also received a punishment, but I was not happy about his punishment.

Several days later I entered Rick’s room.

Everything there stood as before: books in an even row, an old wooden clock, a shirt hanging over the back of the chair. But on the bed only one thing had remained—his small pocket watch, inside which Ana’s childhood drawing was kept folded.

I realized that this drawing had been not love, but my trust, which he carried like an object.

Mariam brought us Rick’s last phone message.

“Nino, I still love you. Tell me that you will not speak against me in court.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Ana was making tea in the kitchen. I could hear the sound of the water boiling.

“What will you answer?” she asked me.

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“For the first time I am.”

Six weeks later, at the court hearing, Rick heard his own voice. The recording sounded through the large hall: his threats, his laughter, his words about how I would never believe Ana.

For the first time Rick understood how his voice sounded in someone else’s ear.

He lowered his head.

I was not sitting beside him.

Ana stood beside me.

The court found Rick guilty of threats, illegal entry, and an attempt to destroy evidence. He could not receive the house that he had secretly planned to sell, because Mariam also discovered his forged signatures at the bank. The money from our joint account was returned.

But for me, neither the money nor the punishment was most important.

What was important was that Ana finally began sleeping again.

Three months later we moved to a small town near the sea. I began working in a library. In the mornings I opened the windows, arranged the books, and listened to how the coastal wind blew.

Ana enrolled in college. On Sundays we baked cinnamon buns together, although she always said that my buns turned out too large.

“This is not a bun, but the whole city,” she laughed.

“Then half is yours.”

One November morning, when it snowed for the first time, Ana put a drawing on my table. It showed two women standing before the sea. One of them held a red scarf in her hand.

“This is us,” she told me.

“I know.”

“Now are you no longer afraid?”

I went to the window. Snow was quietly falling on the yard.

“I am afraid, but I no longer allow fear to choose instead of me.”

That same evening I received a last letter from Rick. It said that he had changed, that he had an explanation for everything, and that if I met him only once, I would see everything differently.

The answer was short.

“I saw everything. I do not need a meeting anymore.”

I did not send the letter. I simply tore it up and put it in the trash can.

Then I entered Ana’s room. A new photograph hung on her wall, in which she was laughing. It was a real laugh, cautious but free.

And I returned to the kitchen and opened the drawer.

Rick’s small pocket watch was still lying there.

It had stopped at the same minute when Ana returned home.

But this time I was no longer looking at the watch as a sign of the past. It was simply an object that no longer had power.

I spread the red scarf over the windowsill so that it could dry.

The first snow was falling outside.

I closed the door.

And this time peace entered the house.