Part 4 — On Christmas Eve, I went to my ex-wife with accusations, but one look from her upon seeing the child froze me on the spot

Leonard Cole was my father, and when I saw his name on the screen that night, I realized for the first time that this was no longer only about Hanna’s mother.

The doorbell rang again.

I called Rene.

“Is it the police?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “Two lawyers and three security officers. They are there on your father’s orders.”

“What did he do?”

Rene remained silent for several seconds.

“He scheduled a company board meeting for the morning. He claims that you have become emotionally unstable and must be temporarily removed from your position.”

I laughed, but there was no warmth in the laughter.

“On Christmas night?”

“He says it is being done for the child’s safety.”

Diane raised her head.

“Leonard knows?”

Patrick answered:

“He knows everything.”

Hanna’s breathing changed.

“Did you plan this?” she asked her mother.

Diane could say nothing for the first time.

Outside, a car door opened. I heard shoes approaching over the snow.

Patrick closed the folder.

“I am no longer participating in this matter,” he said.

Diane looked at him in astonishment.

“You cannot leave us.”

“I have already left you.”

“I will remind you of your debt.”

Patrick smiled bitterly.

“I paid my debt with money. Today I paid the price that conscience had.”

He took off his ring, placed it on the table, and turned toward me.

“Tomorrow morning I will submit a full statement to the court. I will say that I forged the signature and hid information about the child from you.”

“Why are you helping me now?”

“Because I have already been late enough.”

A heavy fist struck the door.

“Police!” someone shouted from outside.

Hanna went pale.

“Ethan, the child should not be with you.”

“Why?”

“If they want to portray you as a violent father, they will use the child.”

I carefully returned Eli to Hanna. It was the most difficult movement of that night.

The door opened.

Two police officers entered, followed by my father’s lawyer, Victor Hayes.

“Mr. Cole, a complaint has been filed against you,” he said.

“Who filed it?”

“Mrs. Reed.”

Diane lowered her head.

“I only wanted to protect the child.”

Patrick stepped forward.

“Then explain to the police why there is a previously prepared court statement in your bag describing Ethan Cole as a neglectful and dangerous father.”

Victor Hayes looked at Patrick.

“You have been removed from this case.”

“I have already withdrawn. That is why I can tell the truth.”

The police officer opened Diane’s bag. Inside they indeed found documents that had not yet been signed, but all the dates had already been filled in.

Diane lost the color in her face.

“It was only a draft.”

“A draft that provided for taking the child away?” I asked.

She looked at me.

“You do not know what kind of father your father was.”

“I know what kind of son I was.”

She had not expected that answer.

The police officers took Diane and Victor aside. Patrick gave them his statement. No one was arrested at that moment, but it became clear to everyone that this night was only the beginning.

The next morning my father called me.

“You have no idea what you are doing,” he told me.

I heard his voice from the same room where, as a child, I had sat before him and learned that crying was weakness.

“No, Father. For the first time, I know.”

“The company will collapse without you.”

“Then let what I thought was more valuable than my family fall.”

“Hanna will leave you again.”

“That will be her choice.”

“The child will be used against you.”

“No one will use the child.”

My father lowered his voice.

“I made you the person you are.”

“That is exactly why I must become someone else.”

I ended the conversation.

That same day, an emergency meeting of the company’s board was held. My father used the recording made on the day of the divorce against me. My voice sounded through the large screen in the room:

“If Hanna has anything to say, tell her I don’t have time for it now.”

My directors sat in silence.

It was the most painful moment, because for the first time I heard my words through someone else’s ears. I could no longer justify myself by saying that I was tired, that the meeting was important, or that Hanna could have called again.

I had said it.

I had made her understand that her pain was inconvenient to me.

Rene then played the next recording. It was heard how my father told Patrick that Hanna’s pregnancy should be used in the matter of the company’s shares. If the child were declared my legal heir, certain shares would return to my control. If I appeared unfit as a father, custody and the property would pass into other hands.

My father lowered his eyes.

“This was protecting the business.”

“No,” I said. “This was stealing a child.”

The board suspended his authority that same day. Patrick admitted the forgery in court. An investigation began against Diane for planning the child’s abduction and falsifying documents.

I did not welcome anyone being punished.

But I also no longer protected them from the consequences of their actions.

Three weeks later I went to Hanna’s house. The baby seat was still in the same place in the living room, but the papers were no longer scattered chaotically across the table. A small wooden shelf stood by the window, and Eli’s first photograph had been placed on it.

Diane’s room was empty.

Only one thing remained on the wall—an old family photograph, on the back of which Hanna had written by hand: “The hardest thing is the truth when you are expecting it most.”

Hanna led me to the baby’s tiny crib.

“He already smiles when he hears your voice.”

“Really?”

“When you tell him, ‘Hello, Eli,’ he moves his hands.”

I bent down.

“Hello, Eli.”

The baby opened his eyes and smiled at me.

Several months later I moved from Seattle to Olympia. I left the company’s daily management and opened a small technology workshop. There were no glass walls there. In the morning I cleaned the wooden floor, at noon I ate lunch with the employees, and in the evening I returned home on time.

It was a simple life.

That was exactly why I loved it.

Hanna and I did not begin restoring our relationship where everything had fallen apart. We began slowly, with conversations in which we put our phones aside. At first we spoke only about the child’s sleep and doctor’s visits. Then one evening Hanna asked me:

“If you had known immediately that I was pregnant, what would you have done?”

I told her the truth.

“I probably would have been confused at first. Then I would have done everything to become a father.”

“Why weren’t you doing that then, when I asked you simply to listen to me?”

I lowered my head.

“Because I thought they would consider listening to you my defeat.”

“What do you think now?”

“I think a person fails when he leaves the person he loves alone and calls it dignity.”

Hanna placed her hand on the table. It was not a promise of reconciliation.

But it was a beginning.

In spring, Eli stood up for the first time. Wooden blocks were spread across the floor in front of him. He picked up a red block, took two steps, and fell straight into my knees.

I caught him.

Hanna laughed.

“He is stubborn like you.”

“Brave like you.”

That evening we received a letter from Diane. She had left the city and wrote that she regretted everything. At the end was one sentence: “I want you to consider me family again someday.”

Hanna read the letter for a long time.

“Should we answer?”

“Only if you want to.”

She shook her head.

“Not yet.”

That was her right.

My father later offered us money, and then an apology. I returned both letters. Not because the pain no longer existed, but because I no longer needed to repair it with someone else’s money.

One December morning, almost a year later, Eli stood by the window watching the snow. I was drinking coffee in the kitchen, while Hanna was putting gloves on his little hands.

“Daddy, look!” Hanna shouted when Eli pointed at a white snowflake on the window with his finger.

Daddy.

That word was still a miracle to me.

I was wearing the old silver bracelet on my wrist. The small compass needle no longer trembled. Its glass was slightly scratched, although it still showed the direction.

Eli ran toward me holding a sheet of paper. Three figures were drawn on it: a little boy, a woman, and a man with very large hands.

“Is this us?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Home.”

“Home?”

He added a red roof to the drawing and then grabbed my wrist.

“Here.”

His little finger fell onto the compass needle of the bracelet.

I looked out the window. Snow was falling quietly. This time I was not looking for someone I might lose. I knew where I was.

And for the first time in my life, I no longer needed a compass to get home.