Part 4 — I Went on Stage with My Child to Receive the Diploma, When the Rector Opened the Folder and My Sister’s Smile Suddenly Froze

The lawyer ended the call, but the phone lit up again immediately.

“There is another message,” he said.

The rector raised his hand.

“First we must get Valeria out of here.”

“I will not run away,” I told him.

My voice was not calm, but it was already mine.

Claudia stood near the stage and was trying to bring the old confidence back to her face.

“You have no idea what you are doing,” she told me. “Mother has lawyers.”

“And I have documents.”

“You used all this against the family.”

“The family used my name, my work, and my child.”

Renata woke up and began to cry quietly. Her small hand gripped my neck. This movement gave me a strange strength.

The rector asked the security guards to clear the hall. The students left slowly; some avoided my eyes, some quietly filmed me, but this time no one laughed.

A sheet of paper remained on Claudia’s chair in the back row. The first page of the paper submitted under her name was visible on it. A small marking made in my handwriting could be read: “Break because of Renata’s fever — continuation in the morning.”

Claudia reached out to take it.

“Do not touch it,” the lawyer told her.

“It is my material.”

“That is exactly what the investigation will establish.”

For the first time, Claudia could not answer anything.

I moved into the rector’s office. There was a wooden cabinet, an old clock, and withered lavender placed by the window. Renata was strapped to my chest, and I held the diploma paper in my hand.

The lawyer arranged the documents on the table.

“The university will officially defend you,” he said. “The appropriation of your paper has been confirmed. The false complaints and the change of contact details are a separate case.”

“What do you know about Ivan?”

Salvador looked toward the window.

“He returned to the city two years ago. He left a letter with us because he could not find you. He died in an accident several weeks ago.”

I pressed Renata’s head to me so tightly that the child sighed angrily.

“Why did no one tell me?”

“The letter reached us only when his belongings were transferred from his family. I decided to bring it to you today, because hiding the truth would already have been complicity.”

I lowered my eyes.

I was angry at Ivan. Then at myself. Then at Claudia. In the end, only emptiness remained.

That evening the police took Claudia from the university for questioning. She was not arrested. This was still only an investigation, but her face already showed that for the first time no one would save her from the consequences.

Teresa came to the office later.

She knocked on the door twice.

“Come in,” I told her.

She stopped on the threshold. She held a small bag in her hand, and the severity I had seen on her face for years was no longer there.

“Valeria, I have to explain.”

“I heard the recording.”

“Claudia wanted help.”

“Turning your back on me is not help.”

“You were very stubborn.”

“No. I simply did not stop.”

Teresa looked at Renata.

“I thought the child would destroy you.”

“You wanted me to be destroyed.”

At these words, Mother’s face changed. I did not feel happy. It did not resemble victory. It resembled a room in which at last I opened a window and discovered that I had lived for all those years in closed air.

Several days later the university sent me a recording in which Claudia and Teresa’s conversation could be heard. It was the moment when the guilty person hears their own voice from someone else.

I had to submit the recording to the court.

Claudia came to me.

“Turn it off, please.”

“You said it yourself.”

“At that time I did not understand what I was doing.”

“You understood very well. You were simply sure that I would never answer you.”

Pain showed on her face, but I was no longer trying to calm her.

“I need your silence,” she said.

“My silence has already cost me too much.”

That same day I tidied our old room. I left only one thing in the cupboard: Renata’s small yellow sock, which had been swaying on the baby carrier that evening. I never found the other sock.

The copy of my hand-made diploma still hung on the wall beside the bed. The corner of the paper was bent because for months the wind had blown in from the window beside the bed.

I left my mother’s house.

The new place was small, but there no one told me that my child was a disgrace. The city roofs could be seen from the window. There was one table in the kitchen, and Renata’s pencils lay scattered on it.

Three weeks later I began working at the municipal program office. My first task was to create a network of free children’s rooms for young mothers.

On my first working day Renata sat beside me. A sheet of paper lay in front of her. She drew two women, one small child, and a large door that had a handle.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“You.”

“The second?”

“Me too.”

“Why is the door so large?”

Renata turned the pencil around.

“So that both of us can pass through.”

That evening I looked at her drawing for a long time.

Four months later the case went to court. Claudia admitted appropriating the paper, the university submitted all the documents, while Teresa accepted responsibility for the false statement and withdrew her request for Renata’s guardianship.

I did not hate them.

I simply no longer wanted to return to them.

One morning, during the first snow, I received a letter from Claudia. It was three pages long. She wrote that Mother was ill, that she missed the family, that everything had changed for her, and that perhaps we could start again.

The last line said: “We are still sisters.”

I wrote the reply that same evening.

“Yes, we are sisters. But I am no longer a person who will pay for your decisions with her life. I wish you peace. But I will not return to your life.”

I put the letter in the mail and did not look back.

Several days later I put shoes on Renata. I could not find both yellow socks together, so I took one old sock and the other was the small one that had been with me on that stage.

Renata took her first step on the stairs.

I walked behind her, holding the diploma in my hand.

It was snowing outside. The city was quiet. For the first time, no one was blaming me in that silence.

Renata held out her hand to me.

I took it.

And we both walked through the large door together.