Part 4 — I Sang Loudly in Dominic Vale’s Mansion Until He Put Down a Strange Key and Turned Pale

And for the first time Dominic looked at me as if this time not his life, but my choice, were at stake.

“You will not come,” he told me.

“If you go alone, you may not return.”

“This is my family.”

“I also ended up in this matter because of your enemy.”

Marcus put his hand on the table.

“It is a trap.”

“I know,” Dominic said.

“Then why are you going?”

“Because if Anna is alive, twelve years is enough.”

I looked at Dominic.

“You will not be alone.”

“Ruby, this is not a request.”

“Neither is my answer a request.”

That night the house no longer resembled a fortress for the first time. Every door was open, people were moving through every corridor, and the telephones were ringing one after another.

Marcus called the chief of the city police. Then two more people. Dominic’s lawyer, Sergo Abashidze, managed to arrive in ten minutes, but stopped as soon as he entered the office.

“Where did you find these files?” he asked.

“They were in the wall of my house,” Dominic answered.

Sergo listened to the recording.

Victor’s voice was heard clearly. He spoke about transfers, false accounts, the brakes of Anna’s car, and Daniel Bennett’s disappearance.

At the end of the recording Victor said: “Dominic clings to silence as a criminal clings to his alibi. It is enough to create a little noise and everyone will look at him.”

Dominic closed his eyes.

“Play it once more,” he said.

Sergo shook his head.

“I cannot anymore.”

“Play it.”

The recording played from the beginning again.

Dominic stood by the wall and for the first time heard the true description of his life in someone else’s voice. He realized that for years he had been hiding Victor with his own silence. Everyone thought that Dominic chose cruelty, but in reality he had simply given fear permission to rule the house.

Sergo closed the file.

“I can no longer be your representative if you go to the station alone. This is suicide.”

“Then you will no longer be my lawyer.”

“No, Dominic. Then I will be the person who gives everything to the police.”

Dominic looked at him for a long time.

“Do it.”

It was his first refusal to take control back.

Two hours remained until midnight. Just then Marcus entered, with an expression on his face that I had never seen before.

“Victor’s people were caught on the road,” he said. “There were handcuffs, sedative drugs, and a plan of my house in the car.”

Dominic gripped the chair.

“Let us go to the station anyway.”

“The police are already on their way,” Sergo said. “This time you will not decide who enters when.”

It was raining at the station. The old platform lights flickered in the wind. The clock showed midnight when a woman’s voice sounded from far away.

“Dominic?”

Dominic took a step.

A woman came out of the shadows. Her hair was completely gray, and an old brown bag hung from her shoulder.

“Anna,” he said.

Dominic stopped.

The woman seemed to try to smile, but her face tensed.

“You have grown so much.”

Dominic could not find an answer. Then he approached and hugged her. Both stood in the rain for a long time, as if the lost years were falling around them.

Anna survived, but after that accident Victor hid her in a clinic and told everyone that she had died. Daniel was killed that same night because they could not obtain the recording and documents from him.

The police arrested Victor the next morning. From his office they seized the records, my mother’s medicine list, and Daniel’s final letter.

The letter said: “Tell Ruby that I did not leave. I simply could not return.”

These words destroyed me more than any accusation.

Several weeks later Dominic’s house became empty.

He dismissed half the guards. He opened the doors of the west wing. He removed the heavy curtains from the windows. For the first time the morning sun entered there.

In his office only one thing remained on the floor—my mother’s old music box. The silver bird on its lid was broken, but Daniel’s voice was still preserved inside.

I stood there holding the red strawberry-shaped clip in my hand.

“Do you want to take it?” Dominic asked me.

“No.”

“But it belongs to your mother, does it not?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you leaving it?”

I looked around the room.

“For the first time I want something to remain here because taking it away no longer frightens me.”

Dominic lowered his head.

Three months later I opened a small cleaning company on the other side of the city. In my name. By my rules.

In the mornings I worked with two employees, and in the afternoons I helped the neighbor’s girl with her homework. Every Friday I sang in a small hall. My voice was still strong, but now while singing I no longer proved to anyone that I had the right to exist.

Dominic came sometimes. He stopped at the door and waited until I noticed him myself.

One evening he brought me a drawing by a little boy. He was Anna’s grandson. A large house was drawn on the picture, with all its windows open. And a red strawberry hung in the sky like the sun.

“He said that this is you,” Dominic told me.

“Why a strawberry?”

“Because you are the loudest color in the picture.”

I laughed.

“And you?”

“I am in the corner.”

“Still silent?”

“I am learning how not to be.”

At the end of the fourth month I received a letter from Victor. It was from prison. Only three sentences were written.

“You took everything from me. Tell Dominic that a deal is still possible. If you come, I will show you the remaining documents of your father.”

I put the letter on the kitchen table.

Dominic stood in front of me.

“Do you want me to go with you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Not anymore.”

“Then why not?”

I tore the letter in half.

“Because I no longer need his truth in order to continue my life.”

Dominic slowly nodded to me.

“That is a good answer.”

“What would you have answered?”

“Earlier I would have gone to kill him.”

“Now?”

“Now I will simply let him live beside his words.”

On the first day of winter snow came early in the morning. In my little office the heating device was making noise, and the child’s drawing hung on the wall.

I placed the red strawberry-shaped clip on the windowsill. My mother’s object was no longer only a sign of loss. Now it had become proof that some things can return—not in their old form, but through a more peaceful life.

In the evening Dominic called me.

“Should I sing, or do you want silence today?” I asked.

For several seconds nothing could be heard on the phone.

Then he chuckled.

“Sing, Ruby.”

I opened the window. Snow entered the room, touched the clip lying on the sill, and knocked it onto the floor.

This time silence no longer frightened me.