Part 4 — Before the pregnancy, my mother-in-law evicted me from the house, but when I took out my things, Andrei’s face suddenly changed

When everything about Andrei’s company was changing, none of us yet understood how quickly it would happen.

After Tamar’s words, it seemed as if the air disappeared from the room.

Andrei raised his head.

“The police? Why?”

“Because Leonid discovered forged signatures in the financial records,” Tamar said. “And because someone’s money was being illegally transferred from your company.”

Galina became pale.

“This was arranged by Marika.”

“No,” I said. “I only took back my own house.”

There was another knock at the door.

This time two police officers entered, and Leonid stood behind them. He was twenty-three, but at that moment I saw again the eleven-year-old boy I had met for the first time: his shoulders were drooping forward, and he was clutching a dark green notebook with both hands.

He walked straight toward me.

“Marika.”

It was one word.

But twelve years lay inside that one word.

“I am here,” I said.

Leonid first looked at Andrei, then at Galina.

“Grandmother told me that you wanted to take me away.”

Galina jumped up.

“Leonid, this woman uses everything against you!”

“I know,” he answered calmly. “That is why I brought what you wrote.”

He opened the notebook. Several printed messages lay between the pages.

“These were from your phone, Grandmother. You wrote to me that I should not believe Marika. Then you told me that Father no longer had money and that I was a problem for him. But you did not know that I still had the old account saved.”

Andrei looked at the notebook.

“Leonid, I will explain it to you.”

“You did not explain it to me for twelve years, Father.”

There was no anger in his voice. That was precisely why it was heavier.

The police officer handed Andrei a folder.

“You must come with us for questioning. This concerns misappropriation of money from the company accounts and the use of forged signatures.”

Andrei immediately took out his phone.

“I will call my lawyer.”

He dialed the number. He waited several seconds, then called again.

“He is not answering,” he said.

Tamar answered calmly:

“This morning he already sent you notice. He no longer intends to defend you because he discovered that documents had been hidden from him as well.”

The phone slipped from Andrei’s hand.

Before taking him to the police, they made him listen to the recordings. Tamar placed the laptop on the table and played the last conversation.

Andrei’s own voice sounded:

“Marika will not go anywhere anyway. If Valeria and the child need the apartment, we will simply send her away.”

Galina’s laughter followed in the recording.

“She has neither money nor a family.”

Then Andrei’s voice sounded again:

“The main thing is that she must not find out that we have been living on her money all this time.”

Everyone in the room fell silent.

Andrei listened to the recording and seemed to see himself from the outside for the first time. His face had an expression as if he had heard someone else’s voice.

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

“You did,” Leonid answered. “I was here, and now I understand everything.”

Galina picked up my bag from the floor and ran toward the door.

The police officer blocked her way.

“Madam, you must stay too.”

“I have done nothing!”

“The court will determine that.”

That evening I left only three things in the apartment: the small clock hanging on the wall, the ceramic pot standing by the kitchen window, and the old yellow necklace that Leonid had given me when he was eleven. A small silver moon hung from it.

The necklace was cheap. But Leonid told me then that the moon never leaves the sky, even when clouds cover it.

I wore that necklace on every difficult day.

That night, however, I placed it on a small plate beside the door.

The empty apartment was breathing loudly. Traces of furniture were visible on the walls. Dark rectangles left by the carpet lay on the floor. I had once thought this house was full, but when everything was gone, I realized that for years I had been paying for emptiness.

Leonid stayed with me.

“Where will you go?” he asked me.

“To a hotel first. Then I will rent a small apartment on the other side of the city.”

“Alone?”

I smiled at him.

“This time being alone does not frighten me.”

“May I come to you?”

I did not need an answer to the question.

Three weeks later, the company was temporarily closed. An audit confirmed that Andrei had been taking money from the accounts for years and using the employees’ names. It turned out that Galina knew about it and that Valeria had also received money.

Valeria testified in court.

She said that Andrei had promised her a new life and told her that the apartment was his. Three days before the child’s birth, however, she ended her relationship with Andrei and went to another city to her parents.

I did not smile at a single hearing.

When the judge ordered compensation for the financial damage, there was no longer any expectation in Andrei’s eyes that I would save him.

I did not save him then either.

When he came out of the courthouse, he called to me.

“Marika, one minute.”

I stopped.

“I have lost everything.”

“No, Andrei. You lost what you had from me undeservedly.”

“I still love you.”

Those words would once have changed my whole day. Now they simply seemed tired to me.

“Love is not when you use one person as a house and throw her out of the house when you think someone else is more convenient.”

He looked at me for a long time.

“Leonid no longer speaks to me.”

“Because for the first time he is speaking to himself.”

Months passed.

I began working at a small laboratory in a new city. I woke up at six in the morning, opened the window, and the smell of bread coming from the street entered. At work I had my own cup—white, with blue dots—and every evening I returned home without anyone asking why I was late.

Leonid continued his studies and came to dinner with me once a week. The first time he came, he held a sheet of paper in his hand.

“Look,” he said to me.

A small house was drawn on the paper. Two figures stood beside the house. One was tall, the other slightly shorter. A moon hung above them.

“Is this us?” I asked.

“If you want us to be.”

I attached the paper to the refrigerator.

In winter, the first snow fell on the city. That morning Leonid called me.

“Marika, are you home today?”

“I am.”

“Then I will come. I have something to tell you.”

He came and sat silently for a long time.

“When you were a child, did you really think that I did not love you?” I asked.

He lowered his head.

“No. I thought you loved me most when you told me not to worry about the exam. But I believed Grandmother more because she was my blood.”

“Being family is not only about blood.”

“Now I know.”

He placed his hand on mine.

“You were my family even then, when I could not say it.”

Outside the window, snow was slowly falling. I lowered my eyes so that I would not see how my gaze had become wet.

The next day Andrei wrote to me.

“Please, let us meet at least once. After the trial I understood everything. I know that I lost you, but perhaps we can still start again.”

I looked at the message for a long time.

Then I wrote a short reply:

“I have started again. Without you.”

I did not block him. Nor did I wait for a reply.

In the evening I opened the box of old things. At the bottom I found the small silver moon that Leonid had given me years earlier. The chain was slightly tangled, but I untangled it and put it around my neck.

I stood by the window.

Snow covered the roofs, while the city lights twinkled below. For the first time in a long while, no one was throwing me out of anyone’s house.

I was standing in my own house.

And the moon was still in its place.