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

On the morning of the wedding, my eighteen-year-old daughter did not get out of bed, and by evening she was no longer at home and had left me only a single sheet of paper. The letter said: “Mom, don’t wait for me anymore. You have already chosen.”

Those words extinguished something inside me. I spent the entire day in a white dress, smiling at the guests and repeating to everyone that Ana was simply nervous. In truth, I knew that my daughter was hiding something from me.

Rick stood beside me and held my hand warmly. Under the glass of his watch I could see a small, folded piece of paper that he always carried with him. Once I asked what it was, but he laughed and told me it was a drawing by his former student.

Rick was a history teacher at the school. After my husband’s death, beside him I felt for the first time that life was not completely over. For months we met quietly, because I was afraid Ana would think that I was trying to forget her father.

But at first Ana liked Rick. At the kitchen table they argued with each other about old music, while Rick prepared her for the college interview.

“Mom, at last you made the right choice,” Ana told me once.

Rick laughed.

“Is that a compliment or a warning?”

“Both.”

Then I saw warmth in Ana’s eyes and thought that the three of us really would become a family.

After the engagement, everything changed. Three weeks before the wedding, Ana no longer came down for dinner. If Rick entered the kitchen, she immediately left the room. Twice I found her crying in the bathroom. Both times she quickly wiped her face.

“What happened?” I asked one night, when the small lamp in the corridor was flickering.

“Nothing, Mom.”

“Ana, did something happen between you and Rick?”

She looked at me. Only for one second, but in that second I saw such fear that my breath caught.

“Just leave me alone.”

Rick told me not to pressure her.

“She is already eighteen, Nino. You are going to get married. This is a big change for her.”

His voice was calm. Too calm. Still, I believed him.

On the morning of the wedding, Ana told me that she was ill and would not come to the ceremony. In her room, on the bed, lay the folded red scarf, the one she had worn at her father’s funeral. Beside it, her phone charger had been left.

“Are you planning to stay home?” I asked.

“Please, Mom, go.”

Rick put his hand on my shoulder.

“Nino, let’s not ruin everything today.”

I left.

When we returned home in the evening, Ana was gone. Only a letter lay on the table. Her phone was turned off. The police told me that she was an adult and had apparently left of her own free will.

I spent a month without sleep. Rick comforted me every day, cooked food for me, and told me that Ana would return.

Then, one Sunday, someone knocked on the door with such force that the glass fell from my hand. I opened the door and saw Ana—thin, disheveled, with swollen eyes.

“Mom…”

I moved toward her, but Rick appeared in the corridor.

Ana looked at him and stepped back.

Rick’s face turned pale.

“Ask your husband why I left,” Ana said trembling.

“What does this mean?” I asked.

Rick was looking at the floor.

Ana tried to take something out of her bag, but her hand stopped. Rick took one step toward her and said quietly:

“Ana, don’t you dare…”

I stepped between them and reached toward the bag. Ana’s fingers darted like lightning toward the zipper, while Rick’s hand moved toward the strange, familiar paper…

Rick’s hand could not reach the paper. Ana pressed the bag to her chest and stepped back. On the corridor wall hung a photo from our wedding; the shards of the fallen glass were reflected in its surface and distorted all three of our faces.

“Don’t go near her,” I told Rick.

“Nino, I’m simply trying not to ruin this evening any further.”

“My daughter was missing for a month.”

“She left on her own.”

Ana smiled bitterly.

“No. I ran away.”

Her words changed the air in the room. I realized that until then we had both been living in the same lie; I simply knew only part of it.

I took her into the bedroom. It was six o’clock in the evening, rain was striking the thin windowpanes by the window, and mud from Ana’s shoes remained on the carpet. She took off her coat, and I saw a dark mark on her wrist.

“Who did this to you?”

“He grabbed my hand.”

“Who?”

Ana avoided my eyes.

“Listen first. Then decide whether you will believe me.”

Rick was standing behind the door.

“I’m here,” he said.

“That is exactly what frightens me,” Ana answered.

Rick slowly closed the door, but did not lock it. And for the first time I noticed that there was a brown stain on the sleeve of his white shirt. It might have been coffee. It might not have been.

Ana took a small memory card out of her bag and put it on the table.

“This is from the neighbor’s camera. I also recorded several things with his old phone.”

Rick tried to laugh.

“What are you going to do based on this? Stand against me?”

“I want him to say himself what he did.”

“Ana, be careful.”

“You told me that that night too.”

Rick fell silent.

My knees gave way, but I grabbed the back of a chair.

“Which night?”

Ana turned toward me.

“Two days before the wedding, he tried to enter my room. I had locked the door. He told me that if I said anything to you, he would make you believe that I was sick and jealous. Then he told me that on your wedding day he would say something in front of everyone because of which you would never be able to return to me.”

Rick shook his head.

“That is nonsense.”

“Then why did you tell me that my mother’s life was in your hands?”

“I did not say such words.”

“You did. And now we will listen to your voice.”

Ana was turning on the phone when Rick suddenly approached. I stood in his way.

“One more step and I will call the police.”

His face changed. For a moment I could no longer see the kind, reassuring man I had known for months.

“The police?” he chuckled. “First listen to how your daughter sounds when she tells the truth.”

“Don’t touch her.”

“You do not even know whom you are defending.”

Ana stood in the corner of the room and held the phone tightly in her hand. Its screen was blinking. She pressed record.

“Now tell me, Rick. Why did you enter my room that night?”

Rick was silent for a long time. The sound of the clock’s seconds was heard so clearly, as if the whole city were listening in on the house.

“Because you were destroying our family.”

“The family? Two days before the wedding?”

“Because your mother depended on me.”

“And you wanted me to disappear?”

Rick looked toward me. There was no love in his eyes anymore, only calculation.

“Nino, if you publish this recording now, no one will believe your daughter.”

“Why?”

He took out his phone and turned the screen toward me. There was a message sent in my name, with words I had never written.

“Because this is only the beginning.”

At that moment Ana opened a file on the phone. From the very first second Rick’s voice was heard, but the words spoken in the recording were so heavy that I closed the door and thought about only one thing: if all this turned out to be true, with whom had I spent the last year…

And then a message arrived on my phone from an unknown number: “If you want to find out where Ana was for one month, come alone to the old station at ten tomorrow morning…”

The message was still blinking on the screen when the recording on Ana’s phone continued. Ten in the morning was still far away, but at that moment I realized that going to the old station was not the most dangerous choice. The most dangerous thing was staying at home.

Rick’s voice could be heard clearly in the recording. It was his voice, but in a tone I had never heard before.

“If you tell your mother that I entered your room, I will say that you made all of this up. You will ruin her wedding and she will hate you forever.”

Ana’s breathing could be heard in the recording.

“Get out.”

“First promise me that you will be quiet.”

“Get out, Rick.”

Then there was the sound of a heavy fall, Ana’s frightened cry, and Rick’s words:

“You cannot record me. Give me the phone.”

I leaned against the wall. My palms became cold. Rick stood in front of me and was no longer trying to justify himself.

“This is only an excerpt,” he said.

“You threatened my child.”

“I was trying to preserve the family.”

Ana looked at me bitterly.

“You call this a family?”

Rick extended his hand toward her.

“You yourself came to my house and asked me not to tell your mother anything.”

“Because you told me you would make my mother lose her job and show everyone her personal letters.”

“I did not threaten anyone.”

At that moment Ana opened a second file. The video lasted several seconds. The neighbor’s camera was looking at our yard. The time display showed eleven at night, two days before the wedding. Rick was standing in front of Ana’s room window. He knocked on the window, and then struck the door sharply several times.

In the video I heard my own voice. Downstairs, in the kitchen, I was saying:

“Rick, what is happening?”

He was not looking toward the camera.

“Nothing, Nino. Ana is feeling unwell.”

Then Ana’s voice was heard:

“Mom, don’t come in!”

The video stopped.

I looked at Rick.

“That night you told me Ana was dizzy.”

“She was in a panic.”

“Because of you.”

For the first time Rick lowered his eyes.

Ana came to me and took a folded sheet of paper from her pocket. It was a copy of a police report and a hotel receipt. For one month she had lived in different cities, with the help of friends and strangers. But on the back of the receipt someone had written by hand: “Do not return until the evidence is safe.”

“Who helped you?” I asked.

“Rick’s former student, Levan. He told me that Rick frightened other girls too when they tried to complain against him.”

Rick sank into a chair.

“This is revenge.”

“No,” I told him. “This is the consequence.”

That same evening I called lawyer Mariam. She transferred the recordings to secure storage, and photographed Rick’s phone messages from the screen.

“We are going to the police tomorrow morning,” she said.

“But first we must find out who sent the station message.”

Mariam checked the number and her face changed.

“This number belongs to Rick.”

Rick immediately stood up.

“I did not send anything.”

A call came to his phone. He answered, but did not say a word. After several seconds, only one sentence was heard from the other side:

“You forgot that you were not alone that night.”

Rick slowly lowered the phone.

“Who was it?” I asked.

He did not answer me.

Just then a thin envelope slid under the door. Mariam put on a glove and picked it up. My name was written on the envelope, and from inside came the sound of a heavy object.

Rick stepped back as soon as he saw it.

Mariam began opening the envelope, but before the edge of the paper had been cut all the way through, Rick’s phone rang once again.

This time the name of the person whose existence Rick most of all wanted to hide appeared on the screen…