Part 4 — When a husband locked his pregnant wife in a basement cage, her calmness in front of the guests changed everyone’s face

Markus began shouting at the hospital entrance, but his voice no longer frightened anyone.

“This document was obtained illegally!” he repeated. “Nina is my wife. This is my child!”

Sopho stood on the road, clutching the wooden box to her chest.

“The doctors will take care of her first,” she told him. “And you will wait for the first time while others decide what belongs to you.”

Markus took a step toward her, but two police officers stood in his way.

“Call my lawyer now,” he told one of them.

“We have already contacted your lawyer,” the police officer answered. “He said he would no longer participate in the case.”

“What?”

“He said he had seen enough evidence.”

Markus fell silent.

That night everything in the maternity room was white. White walls, white curtains, a white lamp above my head. Only my blood stood out sharply.

Sopho stood beside me and held my hand.

“What was in the box?” I asked.

She opened the document.

“The result of a genetic test. Markus had it done several weeks ago.”

“Why?”

“He suspected that the baby was not his. But the result says that he is exactly the father.”

For a long time I could say nothing.

The child was his.

And still he wanted to kill me.

Markus knew everything. He knew that the child was his, he knew that my life insurance existed, and he knew that his debts would take the house away. Therefore he decided to get rid of his wife, his debts, and his responsibility all at once.

Several hours later my daughter was born.

She was small, red, and angry. She cried so powerfully that I, who had barely been able to make a sound for three weeks, began to laugh.

“What will you name her?” Sopho asked.

I looked at the baby.

“Lea.”

“Why Lea?”

“Because she came out of darkness and still looks like light.”

That same morning the police found new messages on Markus’s phone. He had sent them several hours earlier to a private doctor.

“If Nina does not survive, write that the complication was sudden.”

The doctor put his hand on the message and lowered his head.

“I should have handed this over to the police,” he said. “Markus paid me.”

Markus heard the recording for the first time in a small investigation room at the hospital.

There was only a table, a chair, and a screen attached to the wall in the room. The police officer turned on the recording.

“Nina will die here. And upstairs I will tell everyone that she is with her family.”

Markus covered his ears with his hands.

“Turn it off.”

The recording continued.

“If you call the police, I will take care of Sopho too.”

His own voice.

His own words.

His own breathing, heard between every sentence.

“I did not say it like that,” he whispered.

The police officer turned off the screen.

“You said it. It is your voice and the recording is continuous.”

Markus lowered his head. For the first time he understood that the strongest witness was not me, but his own mouth.

That same week my things were taken out of the house.

The cage still stood in the basement. The marks of the cutting tool remained on the bars. On the floor there was a small black stain that no one could clean.

I did not go down there anymore.

Sopho brought my things out herself. At the end she was holding the small red wooden whistle that I had bought for the baby during the pregnancy. After Lea’s birth I hung it beside her bed, although she did not yet know how to blow it.

“Shall we take this?” Sopho asked.

I touched the whistle.

“Yes. This is not part of the house. It is part of my child’s future.”

Markus’s case moved quickly. He was charged with unlawful imprisonment, torture, attempted murder, threats, and attempted insurance fraud. Elene requested a deal and confessed everything.

I did not have to attend court. My testimony was shown by video.

Markus told the judge:

“I only lost control.”

The judge answered:

“You did not lose control. You consciously chose violence.”

The sentence was severe, but hearing it did not bring me joy. I felt only exhaustion.

I no longer wanted to manage his life.

I wanted to get my own life back.

Three months later I moved to a small town, twenty minutes from the sea. I rented an apartment on the second floor, where sunlight entered through the kitchen window in the morning.

I began working at a kindergarten. I taught children to draw, and every evening Lea waited for me at the door, stamping her feet in her little shoes.

“Mother, today I drew the sun,” she told me once.

There was a large yellow circle on her paper, and beside it a small house.

“Who lives in the house?” I asked.

“We do.”

“Who else?”

Lea thought for a while.

“Whoever leaves the door open.”

I hugged her. I could not answer.

In winter the first snow came. Lea stood at the window and drew circles on the glass with her finger. I was making tea in the kitchen when a message arrived on my phone.

It was a letter from Markus.

“Nina, I know that I hurt you very much. I want to see Lea at least once. The lawyer says I have the right to do so. Please, do not make me a monster in her eyes.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then a second message came.

“I have changed.”

I put the phone on the table.

Sopho, who was with me that evening, asked:

“Will you answer?”

I went to the window. Outside, snow was falling silently on the street.

“Yes.”

I wrote:

“Lea will know the truth about you anyway. When she grows up, she herself will decide whether she wants to speak with you. And I will no longer protect you from your words.”

I pressed the send button.

The answer came immediately.

“You have become cruel.”

This time it no longer hurt me.

I was no longer the woman who apologized for water, food, or her own life.

I deleted the letter.

That same night I put Lea to bed. She wrapped her hand around my finger.

“Mother, is the door locked?”

“No, darling. It is only night.”

“What if someone comes?”

“Then I will wake up.”

She calmed down and closed her eyes.

I returned to the kitchen. On a small hook by the window still hung the red wooden whistle that I had brought from the basement. Its surface was slightly scratched, but it was still whole.

The wind touched the window frame. The city could be heard breathing. Inside the house, Lea’s peaceful breathing could be heard.

I touched the whistle.

This time I chose the voice.

And I left the door open.