Part 4 — I was still in bed when my fiancée canceled my therapy and one of the caregivers smiled strangely at her words

At Rezo’s last words, the footsteps behind the door stopped.

Dominic lowered the handle.

“Open up, Vincent.”

Tessa looked at me.

“Don’t open it.”

With my right hand I gripped the ship’s whistle. Its edge was cold, but the little object left a strange strength in my palm.

“Don’t open the door for anyone,” I told Tessa.

On the other side Dominic chuckled.

“Isn’t this the door to your house? Or is the caregiver deciding now whom you let in?”

Aria stood silently. For the first time I heard panic in her breathing.

My phone rang again.

“The police are in front of the building,” Rezo told me. “Stay in your safe room. Do not continue the conversation with Dominic.”

“He knows that we have the recording.”

“That is exactly why he should be afraid.”

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. A few seconds later a stern voice came from outside.

“Police. Open the door.”

Dominic opened the door. Before that, Tessa pressed the record button on the phone and hid the device under the bed.

Two police officers and Rezo entered the room. Rezo held a sealed package in his hand. Aria’s face went pale in one second.

“Mrs. Aria Velas, you will have to answer questions concerning financial fraud and the possible organization of a crime dangerous to life,” one of the officers said.

“This is a misunderstanding,” she quickly replied. “Vincent has mixed up his medications. He cannot think fully.”

“Is that why he is supposed to sign your document?” Rezo asked.

Dominic stepped forward.

“Be careful, lawyer.”

Rezo placed the sealed package on the table.

“This is the car’s broken license plate and the driver’s statement. He named the person who ordered him to change the route.”

Aria leaned against the wall.

“I did not know they were going to shoot him.”

“But you knew the car was entering an ambush,” I said.

She looked at me.

“You do not understand what was happening.”

“For six months, every day, I have been learning what it means to no longer understand something. You will not mislead me about this.”

The police officer put handcuffs on Dominic. He did not resist, only stared at Aria.

“Don’t say anything,” he whispered to her.

But Tessa picked up the phone and turned on the recording.

Dominic’s own voice sounded in the room.

“If Vincent gets up, everything is over.”

His face slowly changed. For the first time he heard his own words from outside, in the coldness of someone else’s room, before the eyes of police officers. It was as if the voice had peeled off his skin.

“This was obtained illegally,” he said.

“It is a security-camera recording,” Rezo replied. “And it is also stored on the agency’s server.”

Aria tried to cry, but no tears came.

“Vincent, I was simply afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of losing you.”

“You already lost me on the day you canceled my therapy.”

Her fingers clenched around the pearl-colored bag. The golden clasp jingled again.

The police officers took them both away. I did not follow them with my eyes. Tessa closed the room’s door, and Levan straightened my pillow.

That was when I realized that the house had suddenly become very large.

Everything in Aria’s room stood in its place: the perfume placed in front of the mirror, the piece of dress fabric spread over the wardrobe, the one photograph left on the bed, in which we were laughing against the background of the harbor. On the back of the photograph, in her handwriting, it said: “We will endure everything.”

I left the photograph on the table.

I did not tear it.

Nor did I keep it.

That same week, Rezo placed temporary protection on the company’s accounts. Dominic was charged with organizing the attack, fraud, and preparing false medical documents. Aria changed lawyers, then hired a second one, and finally sent me a letter.

Rezo opened the letter.

“You do not have to answer.”

“Read it.”

In the letter Aria wrote that Dominic had planned everything, that she had only been afraid of losing my property, and that she still had hope for the wedding.

The last sentence was: “If you ever speak to me again, I will explain everything.”

I folded the sheet.

“Tell her that I no longer need an explanation.”

“Are you sure?”

“For the first time, I am.”

Several weeks later, the court rejected the request for guardianship over my company. The doctors confirmed to me that I was capable of making decisions and that no one had taken away my right to continue rehabilitation.

In the courtroom I did not look at Aria.

Not because I hated her.

I simply no longer wanted to be the main witness to my life for her.

Three months later I moved into an apartment from which the harbor could be seen directly through the window. The rooms were small, the walls were white, and in the kitchen I had only two cups. In the morning Tessa came and told me that we would work again today.

“Are you ready?” she would ask me.

“No.”

“Good. Let us start anyway.”

The first time I walked only two meters between the parallel bars. My knees did not obey me, my hands trembled, and sweat appeared on my forehead. In the end I fell.

Tessa held out her hand.

“Again?”

“Again.”

In the second month, my nephew, little Niko, entered the room and brought me a drawing. On it, in large, uneven lines, was a man who had two wheels instead of legs, but held a golden flag in his hand.

“This is you,” he told me. “I drew the wheels so that you could walk quickly.”

“And the flag?”

“You show us the way.”

That evening I went out for the first time to see the harbor. The wheelchair’s wheels bounced over the paving stones, while the smell of the sea hurt and calmed me at the same time. In the morning I began working. Not on returning the old contracts, but on creating a new security department where no decision would ever again be hidden in the hands of one person.

Dominic eventually confessed to the crime. Before the court, Aria said that she had not ordered the bullet, but that she had transferred the money and hidden everything. She did not avoid prison. I did not attend her sentencing.

When Rezo told me that the verdict had been announced, I only nodded.

“You do not want to know how many years?”

“No. My days should no longer be measured by her years.”

In the first week of winter, I hung Niko’s drawing on the wall of the therapy room. I placed a new plant by the window. I transferred money for Tessa’s sister’s treatment, but Tessa accepted it only when I told her that it was not gratitude, but respect for her work.

One evening she arranged my things and picked up the ship’s whistle.

“Have you always had this here?”

“It belonged to my father.”

“Does it make a sound?”

“It used to.”

Tessa brought the whistle to her lips, but did not blow into it.

“Perhaps you simply haven’t used it for a very long time.”

I took the object from her.

My hands were still trembling, but this time I brought it to my lips myself and blew into it.

The sound that came out was weak, hoarse, and uneven.

But it came out.

Tessa smiled at me.

“Can you see the shore already?”

Beyond the window, the harbor lights were coming on. I placed my father’s whistle on my knees and looked toward the sea.

“Not yet,” I told her. “But I know the direction.”

That night, before going to sleep, I placed the whistle beside the bed. Its old bronze had faded from the sun, and the marks of my fingers remained along the edge.

This time I myself sent its sound far away.

And the shore answered me.