Part 4 — On Christmas Eve I Went to My Ex-Wife to Apologize, but a Little Boy Looked at Me by the Door and Jessica’s Smile Immediately Disappeared

“What does that mean?” my mother asked, but her voice no longer resembled the voice of the woman who had all the answers in childhood.

I still had the phone pressed to my ear.

“Mr. Ethan, if you can, come to my office at nine in the morning,” the attorney told me. “Bring your military-service papers and everything concerning your mother.”

“What signatures are we talking about?”

“Loans taken in your name. Also the fund you inherited from your late father.”

The air in the room seemed to disappear.

My mother put her hand on the chair.

“Don’t listen to him. Jessica arranged all this.”

For the first time Jessica looked directly at her.

“For seven years you told everyone that your son had disappeared and that you were only trying to protect him. Stop now, at least.”

“You destroyed my family.”

“No, Wendy. You destroyed it. I only watched the pieces.”

Leo sat on the bottom step of the stairs. He held the paper star so tightly that one corner folded again.

My mother saw his gaze and came toward me.

“Ethan, I need to talk to you alone.”

“Never alone again.”

At these words she understood for the first time that she no longer had influence over me.

She took out her phone and called someone.

“Contact the attorney. Now. Tell him that my son is confused and is being pressured.”

There was silence on the other end for several seconds.

“Who hung up?” my mother asked.

No one answered.

During the next hour my phone rang continuously. The bank confirmed that two loans had been taken out in my name. One was for renovating an apartment I had never owned. The other was for an investment account I was hearing about for the first time.

The attorney told me that the signatures on both documents were from almost exactly the period when I had been abroad.

“How will you prove that you did not sign them?” I asked.

“Your military records show that you were on another continent on those days. Besides, the bank has video recordings.”

My mother could not find an answer.

The next morning her attorney came to the house. He was a man over fifty, in a dark jacket and with a worn leather bag. He listened to my mother for several minutes, then closed the bag.

“Mrs. Wendy, I cannot defend you if you continue hiding documents from me.”

“You work for me.”

“No. I worked with you. This is already something else.”

He looked toward me.

“My advice is that you return all the documents to Ethan and do not contact him without an attorney.”

My mother’s face turned pale.

That same day we went to the police. Not for revenge. I simply realized for the first time that protecting my mother from the consequences was no longer my duty.

Three weeks later she heard her own words through someone else for the first time.

In the interrogation room, a recorder stood on a small table. The investigator turned on the recording.

“Ethan chose the army and should have nothing to do with this child.”

My mother lowered her head.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Is that your voice?” the investigator asked.

“Yes, but…”

“Then you say that he should not be informed about the child.”

My mother covered her face with her hands.

The hardest thing for me was not that she was punished. The hard thing was listening to her and understanding that seven years ago she only had to tell the truth.

Later the case went to court. For forged signatures, bank fraud, and concealing documents, my mother was sentenced. She could not return my money, but the banks canceled the accounts, and the old family house was sold to cover the debts.

I left the courtroom silently.

Jessica was waiting for me at the door.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“That is also an answer.”

Leo was not with me that day. Jessica decided not to burden the child with everything at once.

When I returned home, I entered my mother’s room. The wardrobe was empty. Only one thing remained on the shelf—a photograph from my childhood in which I was held in my father’s arms.

Beside the photograph lay Leo’s crooked paper star. Jessica had brought it out for me.

A small piece of red sock was attached to one corner of the star. Leo told me he had no glue and had cut up the sock.

I touched that little piece with my finger and cried for the first time without holding myself back.

Two months passed.

Jessica and I slowly learned to talk without the old anger interfering in every sentence.

With Leo, everything was more difficult.

In the first weeks he asked me only questions.

“Have you really seen a desert?”

“Yes.”

“Do you really know how to take apart a weapon?”

“I do, but I won’t teach you that yet.”

“Why is there noise in your dreams?”

I had no answer to that question.

One Sunday we were in the city park. The March wind shook the trees, while Leo drew with a pencil on a wooden bench.

“What are you drawing?” I asked.

“Our house.”

Four people stood in the drawing. Jessica, me, Leo, and a small figure holding a crooked star.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“Grandfather. Mom said he looks like you in the eyes.”

I put my hand on my heart.

“That’s true.”

“Then he is our family too?”

“Those we loved are family. Those who lied to us cannot change that.”

Leo thought for a while.

“Will you go away again?”

His voice was so small that I needed to breathe before answering.

“No. But if I ever have to leave, I will tell you beforehand. You will never disappear again without my explaining.”

He nodded and added another window to the drawing.

The new life slowly fell into place.

I started working at a veterans’ center and helped young servicemen with documents. Every morning began at the same small café. I no longer drank my coffee black, because Jessica told me that seven years ago I drank it that way only when I was angry with myself.

We rented a small apartment by the river.

Leo’s drawings hung in the living room.

Jessica placed a lamp by the kitchen window and one evening told me:

“Now do you really wait to return home?”

“Now I know where to return.”

At the end of winter I received a letter from my mother. This time it reached me. Her handwriting was on the envelope, but only a few words were written on the paper.

“I want you to listen to me at least once. I know I ruined everything.”

Jessica saw the letter on the table.

“Will you read it?”

“I already have.”

“Will you meet her?”

Outside the window, the first snow was beginning.

“No.”

It was not hatred. Nor victory.

Simply, for the first time I no longer felt obliged to soften her guilt with my patience.

That evening Leo came to me holding a new star. This time the cardboard edges had been folded correctly, and he had fastened a small piece of red sock in the middle.

“This one won’t fall,” he told me.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Now it has support on both sides.”

Jessica looked at us from the kitchen and smiled.

I hung the star by the window. Beyond it, snow quietly spread over the city, while a small lamp burned in the room—exactly like the one Jessica had left on for me years before.

This time no one was waiting for darkness at home.

And the star did not fall again.