On the Night of My Mother-in-Law’s Death, I Called My Husband Thirty Times, But After He Answered, an Unknown Woman’s Laughter Rang Out in the Room and Fell Silent

After calling more than thirty times, Julian answered me and shouted at me from his very first words as if the problem was not his mother’s death but my existence.

“Call me one more time and I’ll block your number, Clarissa!” The sound of the sea could be heard in his voice. “I have an important business meeting.”

I moved the phone away from my ear. Behind him, waves were breaking on the shore, glasses were clinking against one another, and tropical music was playing somewhere nearby. Then I heard a woman’s laughter. Soft, free, very familiar laughter of someone who already considered herself victorious.

A white urn stood on the mantel. It contained Evelyn’s ashes—the ashes of the woman who had loved me almost like a mother for nearly twenty years and who had died that same night in the hospital under my hands.

“Clarissa?” Julian asked irritably. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“Then tell me what you want.”

The woman whispered something. Julian laughed quietly and answered:

“Wait for me in the bedroom.”

I gripped the phone between my fingers so tightly that my nails dug into my skin. At that moment everything became clear. For years I had explained his late-night returns with work, his disappeared weekends with meetings, and I had always defended him before his mother.

Now I had nothing left to defend.

“What do you want?” he repeated again.

I shifted my eyes to the divorce papers lying on the table. My wedding ring lay on top of them, and beside it stood a half-packed suitcase. I had been preparing to escape for a week, but I was still waiting for Julian to behave like a human being at least once.

“You’re right,” I said calmly. “I won’t keep you long.”

“What happened?”

I should have told him about Evelyn’s death. I should have told him that instead of arranging her funeral, I had been walking alone between the hospital and the crematorium, signing every paper myself, and calling her son thirty times. But the woman’s laughter sounded through the phone again.

“Nothing,” I answered.

I ended the call.

At that moment something in my heart finally locked shut.

It was nine in the evening when I entered Evelyn’s bedroom. The old smell of lavender lingered in the room, and her small ivory comb lay on the windowsill. Julian did not like this room. Several times he told me to throw everything away, but Evelyn stopped me with silence.

“There is something here that you must not know,” she told me once.

I went to the old writing desk and pulled out the drawers one by one. Papers, old receipts, unopened letters. Finally, at the very bottom, beneath a wooden board, my finger touched a small metal lock.

The same silver key that Evelyn had placed in my palm before her death fit it perfectly.

The lock clicked quietly.

Inside lay a sealed envelope. My name was written on it, and below it one sentence: “Clarissa, read this before Julian returns.”

My hands began to tremble. I opened the envelope. At the top of the first sheet there was only one sentence:

“Julian is not the man you married, and I have kept everything to prove it.”

At that same moment, below, near the gate, the sound of a car braking rang out. Julian had returned. His footsteps approached the house, while my hand reached toward the second sheet…

…I could not read the sheet to the end, because the front door of the house opened so violently that the clock hanging on the wall shook.

“Clarissa!” Julian shouted. “Where are you?”

I pressed the envelope to my chest and turned off the light. Only the streetlamp reached Evelyn’s bedroom, its light lying on the floor in a long yellowish strip. The door handle slowly went down.

“I’m here,” I answered.

Julian stopped on the threshold. He was wearing a white shirt, with small spots of sea salt on the collar. On his hand was the expensive watch Evelyn herself had given him years earlier.

“Why are you in my mother’s room?”

“Because I have to put her things in order.”

His gaze noticed the envelope in my hands. His face changed immediately.

“What is that?”

“A letter.”

“From whom?”

“From Evelyn.”

Julian entered the room. His perfume covered the smell of lavender, and the room suddenly became unfamiliar, cold, and frightening.

“Give it to me.”

“No.”

“Clarissa, don’t start a drama now.”

“Your mother died today.”

The words fell into the room. Julian lowered his eyes for a moment, but no grief appeared on his face. Only irritation.

“I knew she was ill.”

“She was waiting for you at the hospital.”

“I couldn’t leave the meeting.”

“A meeting on an island?”

His jaw tightened. The ivory comb lying on the windowsill fell to the floor from the movement of his foot.

“Don’t stick your nose into my private life,” he told me.

“I have been living in your private life for more than twenty years already.”

He took a step forward.

“Give me the envelope.”

“I’ll read it first.”

“Clarissa!”

For the first time I heard fear in his voice. Not because of his mother’s death. Because of the paper I was holding.

I stepped back and looked at the small recorder lying on the desk. Evelyn had used it for years when she remembered conversations with her lawyer. The device was on. A red dot was blinking.

Julian did not see it.

“My mother was ill,” he said. “In the last months she imagined everything. Don’t believe her.”

“Then why are you afraid?”

His hand came up quickly. He tried to take the envelope away, but this time I was no longer the woman who stepped back. I waved my hand and pressed the papers more tightly to my chest.

“Touch me and I’ll call the police.”

“The police? In my house?”

“I no longer know whose house this is.”

Julian smiled bitterly.

“This house belongs to my family.”

“Evelyn thought otherwise.”

His smile disappeared. He closed the door and turned the lock.

For the first time I realized that we were alone, and the way between me and the exit was blocked.

I opened the second sheet of the envelope. I recognized Evelyn’s handwriting. The letters trembled, but the words were clearly readable: “If you are reading this letter, it means that Julian is already trying to take everything away. First find out who he really is.”

“Continue,” Julian whispered. “And you will see how your curiosity will destroy all this for you.”

“You have already destroyed my life.”

“You know nothing.”

Suddenly a car horn sounded behind the door. Julian lost color and looked at his phone. An unknown number was flashing on the screen.

“Who is it?” I asked.

He did not answer the call.

I pulled the third sheet from the envelope. There was only one address and one date on it. Below was Evelyn’s short note: “Go there alone. Doctor Marian knows why you must not believe Julian’s name.”

Julian suddenly smashed his phone against the wall.

“You are not going there.”

“Now I am going there precisely.”

He blocked my way. His gaze was unlike anything I had ever seen.

“If you leave this house, Clarissa, you will never return.”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. But there should have been no one else in the house. Julian bent toward me, and precisely then a woman’s voice clearly sounded from the other side of the door:

“Mrs. Clarissa, open up. We are Evelyn’s lawyers, and we urgently need to tell you who would buy this house after her death…”

…Julian ran toward the door, but it was already too late. The lock turned twice from outside and the door opened. An elderly woman and a tall, dark-haired man entered the room. The woman carried a leather bag, while the man held a folder of official documents.

“Mrs. Clarissa?” the woman asked.

“That’s me.”

“I am Nino K’avtaradze, Evelyn’s lawyer. This is Doctor Marian.”

Julian stood in front of them.

“There will be no discussion of legal matters before my mother’s funeral.”

Nino looked at him calmly.

“It is precisely after the funeral that we must speak with you. Evelyn left strict instructions: all documents were to be handed only to Clarissa.”

Julian’s fingers clenched.

“I am her son.”

Doctor Marian spoke for the first time:

“No, Julian. This is an issue that Evelyn could no longer hide until her death.”

The room fell silent. I still held the silver key in my hand. Its edge dug into my skin, but I could barely feel the pain.

Nino put the folder on the table and turned on a dictaphone. Evelyn’s voice was weak, but recognizable.

“Clarissa, if you are hearing this, it means I can no longer protect you with my body. Julian is not my biological son. My real son, Alex, died at the age of six. After his death, my husband brought a child from the hospital and told me that he was an orphan. The child’s name at that time was Gabriel. We registered him as Julian.”

Julian stepped back.

“This is a lie.”

The recording continued.

“I raised him as a son all his life because the child was innocent. But after twenty-nine years I found out that he had found the real Julian’s birth certificate and had begun acting under my family’s name. He sold lands, took out debts, and forged my signature. When I resisted, he told me that no one would believe an old woman.”

The strength left my legs. I leaned against the edge of the bed.

“This is impossible,” I whispered.

Doctor Marian opened the folder and took out two documents.

“Here is the old hospital record. The child Evelyn brought home was Gabriel Moran. And here is the DNA test Evelyn had done three weeks before her death. Result: Julian is not her biological son.”

Julian snatched the document and looked at it. His face became gray.

“Did Mother have you lie to me?”

“Evelyn collected a great deal of evidence against you,” Nino answered. “You took money from her accounts, while you were already transferring the house to another person.”

“Clarissa, don’t believe them!” Julian shouted. “This woman is against me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that Evelyn’s signature had been forged?” I asked.

He looked into my eyes. There was no longer the husband I knew there for the first time. Only a man stood there, whose wall of secrets had collapsed.

“Because they would take everything away from you too.”

“You have already taken everything away from me.”

Nino placed a small memory card on the table.

“This is the last one. A recording from the day Julian tells Evelyn that if she does not sign the sale of the house, he will leave Clarissa in the street as well.”

Julian turned toward the door, but two police officers were standing outside. They had not arrested him yet; they had only blocked his way.

Nino received an incoming call on her phone. She listened, her color changed, and she looked toward me.

“Clarissa, the bank called me. Julian withdrew all the money from your joint account this morning and is now trying to leave the country. But that is not the worst news. At the airport he has already given your name as an accomplice…”