Part 4 — After giving birth, my husband left me only one baby, but at the nurse’s whisper, the smile disappeared from his face

Judy’s question remained hanging in the air.

Mark reached toward the phone.

I tried to get up from the bed, but my knees buckled. Luka was pressed against my chest, and Judy supported me by the shoulder.

“Don’t move!” she shouted at Mark.

Mark stopped.

For the first time, his gaze no longer resembled that of a frightened husband. Now a man stood before me who knew that the walls of lies were collapsing all at once.

The woman’s voice could still be heard from the phone.

“Mark, the police know everything. You told me the baby would already be with me. Where is he?”

Mark answered:

“Elene, be quiet.”

“No! You took the money! You said you would convince the mother that the baby was dead!”

Judy recorded the call.

Mark looked at her.

“Turn it off.”

“It is already too late,” I told him.

Fast footsteps sounded in the corridor. A few seconds later the door opened and two police officers entered. Behind them stood the hospital administrator and Doctor Lasha.

Mark first looked at the doctor.

“Tell her that this is only a misunderstanding.”

The doctor lowered his eyes.

“I have already told them everything.”

“You took the money!”

“And you asked me to record the baby as dead,” the doctor answered. “You cannot deny that.”

The first police officer put handcuffs on Mark.

“Mark Hailey, you are under arrest on suspicion of the illegal transfer of a newborn and falsification of documents.”

Mark looked toward me.

“Nina, listen to me. I did not want to do this.”

“But you did.”

“I was in debt. Elene was giving me money. The child would have had a good life.”

“My child had a mother.”

Those words seemed to strike him harder than the handcuffs.

The police led him out of the room. The sound of his shoes could be heard in the corridor for a long time.

Then Judy played the video once more. This time Mark’s words sounded different already.

“Nina will not find out anything. One dead baby and one living one will be enough for her.”

I was listening to my own husband, but the voice seemed to belong to someone else.

Luka was breathing against my chest.

And Niko was nowhere to be seen.

The doctor said they had found the driver from the private clinic. The driver admitted that he had taken the baby to an old maternity hospital on the outskirts of the city. Mark had been advised of that place by the person who gave him his loans.

Three hours later the police called me from there.

“Madam, we found the baby. He is alive.”

I leaned against the wall.

“How is he?”

“Weak, but stable. The doctors say we arrived in time.”

That evening I saw Niko for the first time. He was lying in a small room, in a transparent crib, with a miniature oxygen tube on his nose. The same white bracelet was still on his wrist.

I touched his palm with my finger.

His fingers closed around my finger.

Then I understood that motherhood was not only giving birth to a child. Sometimes it is also a struggle against the people you trusted most.

Mark’s lawyer came the next morning. He stood at the door for a long time before entering.

“My client is ready to explain everything to you,” he said.

“I no longer want his explanation.”

“He wants to see the children.”

“The court must decide whether he will see them.”

The lawyer nodded.

“You know that this case will continue for a long time?”

“I know.”

“And still you refuse a private settlement?”

“Yes.”

It was the first decision I had made not out of fear of Mark.

The investigation established that Mark had paid a hospital employee to deceive me, involved the doctor in debts, and taken money in advance from Elene. He thought the baby would grow up in a family and that everyone guilty would eventually keep silent.

But when Niko was not brought to her, Elene told the police everything. She admitted her own guilt and handed over the evidence.

Several weeks later, in court, Mark was made to listen to his own recording. The judge turned on the sound.

“My wife should be left with only one son.”

Mark hid his head in his hands.

It was the first time he had heard his own words through someone else’s voice.

His lawyer stood up.

“My client is emotionally unstable.”

Mark immediately raised his head.

“I did not say that the baby should be killed.”

The judge answered calmly:

“The charge does not concern only murder. You hid a living baby, deceived his mother, and falsified official records.”

Mark was sentenced to a long prison term. Doctor Lasha lost his license and admitted that he had sold his duty for money. Elene received part of her sentence conditionally because she helped the investigation, although she no longer had the right to approach Niko.

I did not celebrate their punishment.

I was simply breathing.

On the day I left the maternity hospital, only one bed remained in my room. The small cabinet under the window was empty. The flowers Mark had brought had withered. Beside them, on the chair, lay the blanket whose corner showed a star embroidered with green thread.

I divided the blanket in two.

I kept one part for Luka.

The second—for Niko.

After returning home, I no longer hung Mark’s photograph on the wall. Its place was taken by the children’s first photograph, in which Luka was closing his eyes, while Niko looked at the world with his little fists clenched and his brows drawn together.

Three months passed.

We moved into a small apartment on the other side of the city, where the sound of the tram could be heard in the morning and the warm smell of the bakery came through the kitchen window. I began working at a children’s library. At the end of the day I read fairy tales, and on the way home I bought two identical apple juices.

Luka was already laughing.

And when I sang to Niko, he stretched his fingers toward my voice.

One evening, when the first snow was settling on the windows, Luka drew me a picture on a sheet of paper. Three people were depicted: me and two little boys. Above them he drew a huge yellow sun.

“This is us,” he told me.

“Where is Dad?”

Luka put down the pencil.

“He doesn’t live in our house anymore.”

“Why?”

The child’s answer was very calm.

“Because he was telling lies.”

I lowered my eyes so that he would not see my tears.

Six months later I received a letter from Mark. The envelope was thin, with a court stamp on it. It said that he regretted it, that he had changed, that he wanted to see the children, and that I had to listen to him at least once.

I read the letter to the end.

Then I folded it.

I sent a reply to the lawyer.

“The court will decide the children’s safety. I will no longer be the person who carries your consequences on herself.”

I wrote nothing more.

That night both children slept in the same room as me. Niko was breathing peacefully, while Luka had thrown his blanket onto the floor. I took the two parts of the blanket with the green star and carefully covered them both.

Outside the window, snow was falling silently.

For the first time, I was no longer waiting for footsteps outside the door.

My children were home.

And this time I was the one locking the door.