Part 4 — The Husband Locked His Pregnant Wife in a Freezer, but a Familiar Voice Sounded Behind the Door and Victor’s Smile Disappeared

After Daniel’s words, all the sounds in the room seemed to go silent.

I was looking at the newborns’ incubators. One was a boy, the other a girl. Both had small white bracelets on their fingers.

“What do you mean, before we got married?” I asked.

Daniel put the document on the bed.

“Victor took out a loan in your name even before the wedding. Then he used your signature on other documents. He gradually transferred the share in your company to his accounts.”

“But I never gave my signature.”

“That is exactly why I told you that your husband started earlier than you thought.”

At that very moment my phone lit up. Victor’s lawyer was calling.

Daniel answered me.

“Mrs. Carter cannot speak to you.”

“Who do you think you are?” the lawyer’s stern voice came through. “My client demands an explanation.”

“Your client will be asked for an explanation by the police in a few minutes as well.”

“If Lena files a complaint, we will say that all of this is a family conflict.”

I took the phone from him.

“Tell Victor that in a family conflict, they do not lock a wife at minus forty-five degrees.”

The lawyer fell silent.

“Mrs. Carter, it would be better for you to reach an agreement.”

“You are no longer my lawyer.”

“Think about it. Your husband will lose everything.”

“That is his choice.”

I ended the call.

Five minutes later a commotion broke out in the hospital corridor. Victor came in as if he could still open the door and take possession of the room. His coat was open, his hair was disheveled, and in his hand he held the same phone with which he had been waiting for my death a short while earlier.

“Lena, talk to me.”

Daniel stood in front of the door.

“You cannot come in here.”

“She is my wife.”

“Your wife is the woman you tried to kill.”

Victor looked toward me.

“All of this was a mistake. The manager misunderstood.”

“Your voice is on the recording,” I said.

“The recording could have been altered.”

Daniel turned on a small speaker.

Victor’s own voice sounded in the corridor:

“Set the thermostat to minus forty-five. The door will be locked from outside.”

Victor immediately covered his ears with his hands.

“Turn this off!”

“No,” I said. “Listen to it to the end for the first time.”

Then his second phrase sounded: “The twins are so small that no one will ask why their mother died.”

The nurse standing in the corridor covered her mouth with her hand. The doctor lowered his head. Victor leaned against the wall.

“I didn’t say it like that…”

“You said it yourself,” Daniel answered.

The police officers arrived then. They put handcuffs on Victor.

“Lena, please,” he said. “I needed money. I was in debt. I’ll return everything.”

“You sold my life.”

“The children need a father.”

I looked at the incubators.

“They need a father, not a man who planned to kill their mother.”

Victor was taken away. I watched his shadow disappear in the corridor. Strangely, I did not feel relief. Only emptiness.

The next day the police told me that they had found another recording in the folder. It was a conversation between Victor and his manager several days before the wedding.

“Lena will believe you to the end,” the manager was saying.

“She hates Daniel. When something happens, suspicion will fall on him.”

Then I understood that Daniel had never been my enemy. He was simply a person against whom Victor had built lies for years.

Three days later I left the hospital for home. My old house had been sealed by the police, so Daniel found me a small apartment by the river.

On the first night the children cried in turns. And I sat on the kitchen floor, turning the little wooden elephant in my hand.

Its ear was slightly broken off. It had been damaged when it fell onto the floor in the freezer.

The children no longer had a home, but they had each other. And for the first time I had a chance to create a life for them built on truth.

Several weeks later the court remanded Victor in custody. His accounts were frozen. Forged signatures and stolen money were discovered in the company. The manager testified because he realized that Victor would sacrifice him too.

I went to court only once.

Victor did not raise his head.

The judge asked:

“Do you admit that you deliberately locked your wife in an industrial freezer?”

Victor was silent for a long time.

Then he said:

“I simply wanted a way out.”

That was the first time his words meant nothing to me anymore.

Months passed.

Daniel opened a small workshop beside the old warehouse. I began working there as an accountant, four days a week. In the morning I woke the children, prepared their bottles, and left small wooden toys by the window so that a ray of sunlight would fall on them.

I named the boy Niko. The girl—Mariam.

Niko laughed noisily, while Mariam watched everything with large, serious eyes.

One morning, when the first snow fell, Niko put a finger to the window.

“Mom, is it cold?”

“Outside, yes.”

“With us?”

I pressed both children to my heart.

“Never with us.”

That same evening I received a letter from Victor. I recognized his handwriting on the card. Inside there was only one sentence: “Come, let’s start everything over.”

Daniel asked me:

“Do you want us to send an answer?”

“I already sent one.”

“What did you write?”

“Nothing.”

It was the calmest answer I had ever given him.

In a few days the lawyer called me again.

“Victor says that he has changed.”

“He may even be telling the truth.”

“Then why don’t you allow him visitation rights?”

I looked at the children through the window. Mariam held a sheet of paper in her hand, while Niko was adding snow to her drawing with a pencil.

“Change is not measured by words,” I said. “Especially when words have already almost killed me once.”

The lawyer said nothing more.

That night I placed the wooden elephant between the children’s beds. I wanted to see its broken ear when I turned off the light.

It was no longer a memory of the freezer.

It was proof that I had come out of it.

It was snowing outside the window. The children’s quiet breathing could be heard in the room.

I locked the door, put the key on the table, and for the first time in my life I knew that no one would lock this door against me.

The broken ear of the little wooden elephant glittered in the moonlight.

I survived.