Part 4 — My Daughter Did Not Invite Me to the Wedding Because My House Did Not Suit Her Aesthetic — But the Groom’s Smile Disappeared at the Sight of the Lawyer

I stood in the middle of the kitchen and the phone nearly fell from my hand.

I immediately called Samantha.

“Lock the door. Move away from the windows. Call Ben and tell him to send the security people to you.”

“Mom, what happened?”

“An unknown man from Greg called me.”

“He is not here.”

“That is exactly why you must not leave the house.”

Ten minutes later Ben was already standing beside her. And I called Levan.

“This is a threat,” I said.

“Save the number. Do not delete anything.”

“Where is Greg?”

“We do not know yet. But I will notify the police.”

At eleven o’clock at night, two cars stopped in the yard. Law-enforcement officers came, took my phone, and asked me questions. I repeated every word exactly.

Samantha stayed at my house.

She did not sleep all night.

At six o’clock in the morning, her phone lit up. Greg was calling.

She stared at the screen for a long time.

“Do not answer,” I said.

“Maybe he really has an explanation.”

“If he does, he will explain it before the lawyer.”

Samantha answered anyway.

“Where are you?”

Her face gradually hardened.

“No, Greg. Now you listen to me.”

She was silent for several seconds.

“I will not blame my mother for what you did.”

She ended the call.

An hour later Greg appeared at the vineyard’s main gate. He was alone. He was wearing a jacket with a wine-red stain on the front. He put his hands in his pockets and looked at the camera.

“Eleanor, come outside.”

I went to the gate with Ben, but I did not open it.

“We have nothing to say here.”

“Everything has gotten out of control. Victoria is panicking. Niko betrayed you. I was only trying to protect our future.”

“Taking out a loan with my property is not protecting the future.”

“You always punished everyone with money.”

“I did not punish you. I simply stopped paying you.”

He looked at the camera.

“You destroyed my wedding.”

“No. I only locked the door. And you discovered that you were left outside it.”

Just then Ben turned on the recording. Greg heard his own voice: “Samantha will not be able to resist us.”

He fell silent.

His voice sounded once again.

“Eleanor must not remain here after the wedding.”

Greg stared at the speaker as if another person were standing there.

“I did not say it like that.”

“You did,” Samantha answered, standing behind me.

She was leaning against the doorframe. In her hand she held David’s old wedding photograph.

“Was I standing beside you when you said this?” she asked.

Greg could not make a sound.

“Samantha, I did all this for you.”

“No. You did it through me.”

There were tears in her eyes, but her voice was no longer trembling.

“I was supposed to become your wife, not your signatory.”

Greg looked toward me.

“You are turning her against me.”

“She is standing on her own side for the first time.”

That same day Greg’s lawyer called Levan. At first they talked about an agreement, but when he saw the audio recording, the bank video, and the signature examination, the lawyer refused to defend him.

“I am no longer participating in this case,” he told him. “You told me something else from the beginning.”

Victoria called me again.

“You do not know how many people you will destroy.”

“I am only defending my own boundaries.”

“Samantha is an ungrateful girl.”

“She is no longer part of your family.”

“You will regret this.”

“Maybe. But I will no longer follow your threats.”

I ended the call.

Two days later Greg and Niko were arrested in the case of forged documents and financial fraud. An investigation also began against Victoria, because the letters submitted to the bank had been certified with her company’s seal.

I was not happy about this story.

When the police cars left the gate, I stood by the road for a long time and watched their red rear lights disappear into the dust.

Samantha decided to come to me that same evening.

In her room there still stood the white wooden bed that we had chosen for the wedding. In the corner lay the silver key. Greg had left it on the table that day when he fled the house.

The grape-shaped head of the key had become dusty.

Samantha picked it up.

“Did you do this for me?”

“Your father made it. I only wanted to hand it over.”

“I did not deserve it.”

“Do not say that. You made a mistake. That does not mean you are guilty forever.”

“Why did you not call me immediately when you found out everything in the greenhouse?”

I stood by the window.

“Because I wanted you to see for yourself who you were standing beside. A mother can protect her child, but she cannot choose life instead of her.”

Samantha rested her head on my shoulder.

For the first time in several weeks, silence in the room did not hurt me.

The flowers ordered for the wedding were taken by another family. The white tent was removed. I gave the wine from the cellar to a local shelter and hospital. With the money that was supposed to be spent on the wedding, I arranged a new kitchen for the vineyard workers.

Three weeks later, the house transfer process was officially canceled. The stone house remained mine, but the door was open for Samantha.

She did not begin living there immediately.

First she rented a small apartment on the other side of the city and found a job at a family guesthouse. In the morning she made coffee for the guests, and in the evening she called me.

“Today a woman asked me why I am no longer getting married,” she told me one evening.

“What did you answer?”

“I told her that first I am marrying myself.”

I laughed.

Three months passed.

The first snow that year came at the end of November. A white covering covered the rows of vines. I set up a small office beside the cellar, where I drew wine labels and checked Ben’s accounts.

Samantha came on Sundays.

Once she brought me a small drawing. Our vineyard was drawn on the paper, and two people stood in the middle. One of them was holding a small key.

“This is you,” she told me.

“Who is the other?”

“Me. This time not behind you, but beside you.”

I attached the drawing to the refrigerator.

I received the last letter from Greg at the end of winter. He sent it through the lawyer. He wrote that he regretted it, that he wanted to return everything, and that we could have been happy together.

I read the letter to the end.

Then I showed it to Samantha.

“Will you answer?” she asked me.

“Yes.”

On the sheet of paper I wrote only one sentence: “I no longer live in the house you had for me in your plans.”

Nothing more.

I sent the letter to Levan and did not return it to Greg’s address.

That evening I locked the cellar door. I turned the silver key in the lock. The grape-shaped head shone on the cold metal, while David’s initials were barely visible in the light of the snow.

I kept my hand on the handle for a long time.

Earlier I thought that I had to give this key to someone else in order to prove my love.

Now I knew that sometimes the greatest love is when you allow no one to lock you in from the inside.

I put the key in my pocket.

And for the first time, this door opened only for me.