Part 4 — My Partner Kicked Me Out of His Mother’s Birthday, but the Unknown Man Who Came in the Rain Lost Color When He Heard My Answer

In the photograph, my mother stood in front of a small cellar. Santiago was beside her, but much younger, with gray not yet having entered his beard. A third person stood between them.

Rodrigo.

There was a date on the back of the photograph — six months before my mother’s death.

“This is impossible,” I whispered.

Santiago slowly lowered the phone.

“I thought I had met your mother for the first time that night.”

“But you are together in the photograph.”

“Yes.”

There was another knock on the door.

This time more strongly.

Rodrigo’s voice sounded in the corridor.

“Mariana, this is the final warning!”

Santiago put the phone in his pocket and went toward the door. His calmness had returned, but his jaw was so tense that a vein throbbed at his temple.

“Do not open it,” I told him.

“We have to open it.”

“Why?”

“Because they think they still frighten them.”

He opened the door.

Rodrigo stood together with two uniformed men. He held papers in his hand, and his hair was stuck to his forehead by the rain. A few minutes earlier he had been the center of the whole world for me. Now he looked only like a man who was in too much of a hurry to regain control.

“Mariana, I came to take Sofia,” he said.

“No,” Santiago replied.

Rodrigo noticed him for the first time.

“What are you doing here?”

“For the same reason you are here. To protect the child.”

“This is a family matter.”

“Then why did you bring a false court order?”

Rodrigo’s face changed.

“Be careful.”

Santiago opened the folder and handed the papers to the man standing in the doorway.

“The real court order has already been filed. But what you have was prepared by falsifying a notary’s seal.”

One of the uniformed men looked at the document.

“Mr. Salazar, this is definitely suspicious.”

“You do not know whom you are serving,” Rodrigo said.

“Now we do,” Santiago replied. “And we also have an audio recording.”

Rodrigo looked toward me.

“You did this?”

“No,” I told him. “You did this. We only listened.”

Santiago played the phone so that everyone standing in the corridor could hear. Teresa’s and Rodrigo’s voices filled the walls.

“If we make a scene at the birthday, everyone will think she is emotionally unstable.”

Rodrigo closed his eyes.

His own voice could be heard.

In the tone with which for years he had destroyed my love, patience, and trust.

“It is edited,” he said.

“Then call your lawyer,” I answered. “Oh, that’s right. He has already refused to defend you.”

Rodrigo took out his phone and called.

“Luis, come immediately. The situation has changed.”

He listened for several seconds.

“No, I do not care what time it is.”

Then he fell silent.

For the first time I saw fear on his face.

“What did he tell you?” I asked.

Rodrigo did not answer me.

Santiago said it himself:

“The lawyer told him that after these documents, participating in his case would mean professional suicide.”

Rodrigo placed his hand against the wall.

“My mother will settle everything.”

“Teresa is already at the police station,” Santiago said. “My lawyers entered her office an hour ago. The accounts are frozen.”

Rodrigo moved toward me.

“Mariana, we can still settle this peacefully.”

“Peacefully? You took out a loan in my name, planned to take my child away, and continued using my mother’s name after her death.”

“I was doing everything for you.”

I had heard this phrase many times before. Now it was empty.

“No,” I told him. “You were doing this for yourself.”

That same night we went to the notary.

Santiago placed the marriage document in front of me. The pen was heavy, black metal, with a small silver ring on top. When I signed, my hand did not tremble.

This marriage had been a deal at first.

But that night I made a choice for the first time that was not founded on fear.

The next morning the police searched Teresa’s house. Within several hours Rodrigo was also arrested for forged documents, financial fraud, and an attempt to take the child away illegally. I was not near that building.

Santiago did not tell me what Rodrigo looked like in handcuffs.

Nor did I ask.

The only important thing was that Sofia stayed with me.

When we returned home, I found the door to her room open. A pink blanket lay on the bed, but Rodrigo’s photograph was no longer on the wall. Sofia had taken it down herself and left it on the table.

“I don’t want it anymore,” she told me.

“Are you sure?”

“Mom, bad words should not live in my room.”

I picked up the photograph. Rodrigo was smiling as if he could still fix everything.

I put the photograph in a drawer.

Not because I was waiting for his return.

Because I did not need to erase the past. It was enough that he no longer had the key to my future.

The next day Santiago had me open my mother’s old storage room. Under number thirty-nine there was a small iron door. Inside lay documents, an old notebook, and a cassette.

There was my mother’s voice on the cassette.

“Mariana, if you are listening to this, they have probably already told you that I was not guilty. But there is one more thing you must know. Santiago was your father’s friend. On the night when your father left the family, he offered to help us. I refused because I wanted to live for you by my own strength. But Rodrigo knew all this and for years tried to hide the truth from you.”

My breath caught.

Santiago lowered his head.

“Your father was my brother,” he said. “We lost each other years ago. I did not realize that his daughter was living in Teresa’s family.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Until I had evidence, I thought the truth would hurt you more.”

“You cannot decide what I need.”

“I know.”

His voice broke for the first time.

“That is why I will never hide anything from you again.”

Several weeks later, the court annulled the loans taken in my name. Some of Teresa’s companies closed, while others were handed over to the victims. Rodrigo’s lawyer offered an agreement, but I did not personally attend a single hearing where his punishment was discussed.

For Sofia, it was enough that I returned home every evening.

We moved to another neighborhood, into a small bright apartment from whose balcony the morning market could be seen. I enrolled in an accounting course, and several months later began working at a small law firm that helped victims of financial fraud.

In the very first week, Sofia placed a drawing on my desk. In the drawing, three people stood under a large yellow umbrella.

“That’s me,” she said.

“I know.”

“That’s you.”

“And the third?”

Sofia placed her finger on the little figure of Santiago.

“The person who stopped the rain.”

Santiago was making coffee in the kitchen at that moment. When he saw the drawing, he said nothing for a long time.

Our marriage slowly changed.

It was no longer a contract that we both read carefully. It became quiet morning breakfasts, Sofia’s homework, Santiago’s habit of getting up five minutes before the alarm and checking the window.

One evening, four months later, a message arrived on my phone.

Rodrigo.

“I have lost everything. My mother is in prison. Please meet me just once. We were connected for seven years.”

A second message followed soon.

“At least for Sofia’s sake. I am her father.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Santiago entered the room, but did not look at the phone.

“Do you want me to read it?” he asked.

“No.”

“Do you want me to answer?”

“No.”

“Then what will you do?”

I deleted the message.

“Nothing.”

That was my answer.

Not because it no longer hurt.

But because his remorse was no longer my responsibility.

That night I stood by the window. The first snow was falling in the city — rare, light, almost silent. My mother’s copper-colored key lay on the shelf. The number thirty-nine was still visible, but now this number no longer meant a locked secret.

Sofia picked up the key.

“Does this door still exist today?”

“Probably.”

“And will you open it?”

“No, my dear. We have already opened it.”

She placed the key in my palm.

I put it in the small wooden box where her drawing was kept.

Outside, snow was falling silently on the city.

This time I no longer needed to run from the rain.

I was already home.