Part 4 — My Pregnant Wife Was Made to Kneel on the Floor by My Mother, but After I Ran Away, the Smile Disappeared from Her Face for the First Time

…The photograph showed Emily’s last medical visit. The clock in Dr. Vance’s office could also be seen in the corner.

Ana Mkhedlishvili saw the photograph and immediately addressed the police officers.

“Now we have a direct threat to life.”

I was about to answer, but Ana raised her hand.

“Don’t call your mother. Don’t write to her either. From now on, every word is evidence.”

The police officer standing at the door took my phone and photographed the message.

Niko brought the head of security from the hotel administration. The two men downstairs were trying to find our room number, but the cameras had already recorded their faces.

At the same time Eleanor called me twenty-eight times.

She said nothing during the first ten calls.

On the eleventh she said:

“David, come back and I’ll forget everything.”

“Even making Emily kneel in water?”

“She was provoking me.”

“Even the doctor’s syringe?”

“It was a medical procedure.”

“Even forging my signature?”

Silence.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she said at last. “I’m your mother.”

“That is exactly why I wanted to believe you.”

I ended the call.

Ana contacted the bank’s lawyer at that very moment. We went to the bank’s head office, but on the way a police car followed us in front and behind. Emily sat in the middle, clutching her stomach with both hands.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m afraid.”

“So am I.”

“Then why are you speaking so calmly?”

I looked at the pocket watch.

“Because for the first time I know what I’m fighting for.”

It was two in the afternoon in the bank’s glass building. The chief manager, Vakhtang, met us at the door. Sweat was shining on his face.

“Mr. David, all documents received with your signature have been temporarily suspended,” he said. “But yesterday evening one employee really did confirm your signature.”

“Who?”

Vakhtang lowered his head.

“My deputy. He says Liam showed him a video in which you were signing.”

Ana placed my father’s recording on the table.

“We have the video, the recording, and the audio of the call.”

Vakhtang turned on the device.

My mother’s voice filled the room:

“If David does not sign, Vance will put him to sleep. Then we’ll say that his wife hit him and he lost consciousness.”

Then Liam’s laughter.

“In the video it looks as if he is asking for help himself.”

The recording continued.

“The bank will transfer the money by midnight. Tomorrow David will no longer own anything.”

Vakhtang’s face went pale.

“We have to enter this into our system.”

“We already have,” Ana replied. “The police also took a statement from your deputy.”

At that moment my phone rang.

Liam’s name appeared on the screen.

“Put it on speaker,” Ana told me.

“David, Mother says that you are destroying everything.”

“Did you make the video?”

“What video?”

“The one where it looks as if I’m signing.”

His breathing quickened.

“I was just filming what was happening.”

“Did Mother know the phone was on?”

“What difference does it make?”

“You yourself said you would show the video to everyone.”

“So that you would leave us!”

Everyone in the room fell silent.

Liam heard his own words himself, because Ana recorded the call and immediately rewound it.

“So that you would leave us!”

His voice now sounded like that of another person.

“David, I didn’t want it to go this far,” he said.

“But it did.”

“Mother would have solved everything.”

“No, Liam. Mother was taking everything for herself.”

I ended the call.

At six in the evening we went to an emergency court hearing. This was not a final trial, but the judge heard the evidence: photographs of the marks on Emily’s hands, false certificates issued by the doctor, bank records, the audio recording, and Liam’s admitted words.

Dr. Vance was brought to the hearing. His white coat was crumpled.

“I was only carrying out orders,” he repeated.

“Carrying out an order does not give you the right to threaten a pregnant woman,” the judge told him.

Eleanor sat confidently to the end. Her face fell only when the judge ordered protective measures for her and Liam and froze all their accounts.

“He is my son!” she shouted. “I raised David!”

I did not turn toward her.

Emily squeezed my hand.

After the hearing, the police arrested my mother, Liam, and Dr. Vance. A case was opened against them under charges of violence, document forgery, fraud, and threats to life.

I felt no joy at their arrest.

Only exhaustion.

We had to return home three weeks later, when the investigators had finished the search. The silver basin was still standing in the vestibule. Its rim was covered with dried water.

Emily opened the door.

The house was empty.

All the pictures had been taken from my mother’s room, but a square space remained on the wall where our large family photograph had hung for years. Only four small holes could be seen in the dust.

In the dining room I found the protective case from Liam’s phone on the floor. Its screen was shattered.

The room prepared for the baby in the bedroom was unchanged. A small white blanket sewn by Emily lay on the bed. She had placed my father’s watch in the corner.

“You won’t need it anymore?” she asked.

“I will.”

“Then why are you leaving it here?”

I ran my hand over the watch.

“Here I first understood that time was working not against me, but for us.”

Five weeks later our son was born.

We named him Nikoloz, after my father, although everyone at home called him Niko.

The first snow was falling outside the hospital windows. Emily lay on the bed, and the baby was pressed against her chest.

“Look,” she told me. “See how he moves his fingers.”

Nikoloz curled a finger around my hand.

“I don’t know whether I’ll be a good father,” I said.

Emily smiled at me.

“You were already a good father on the day you finally made a choice.”

Six months later we began our life in another city. I handed the company’s legal management over to Ana, while I began working at a small architectural studio. Every morning I opened the windows, brewed coffee, and stuck Nikoloz’s drawings on the refrigerator.

In one drawing, three people were depicted: me, Emily, and a small child. Above them was the sun, and below them was a large tree.

An oak tree.

On Sundays we went to the park. Emily walked slowly, Nikoloz slept in the stroller, and I carried the watch in my pocket. I had already removed the recorder, but the watch still felt heavy in my hand.

One evening, almost a year later, I received a letter.

It was sent by Eleanor’s lawyer.

“She wants to speak with you. She says she regrets it and that the family may still reunite.”

I looked at the letter for a long time.

Emily was preparing the baby’s porridge in the kitchen. The lid of the pot tapped lightly.

“Will you answer?” she asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

I went to the window. It was no longer snowing outside, but a white layer still lay on the branches.

“I already gave my answer on the day I took your hand and brought you out of the house.”

I wrote only one sentence to the lawyer:

“I am no longer a person who can be brought back by fear.”

No reply came the next day.

My mother’s trial continued for years. Liam confessed to the crime and received a sentence. Dr. Vance was deprived of the right to practice medicine. The company survived, but I still decided to sell that house.

I could not continue living in the vestibule where Emily’s crying struck the ceiling.

I took only one thing from that house to the new apartment.

My father’s pocket watch.

One morning, when Nikoloz was already trying to stand, he reached for the watch lying on the table. The watch cover opened, and the small oak leaf flashed in the sunlight.

“Father, tree,” he said, as if it were his first clear word.

I knelt down and hugged my son to my heart.

Emily stood in the doorway. Her face was peaceful.

I kept the watch in my hand.

This time, time was no longer running away.

It stayed with us.