Part 4 — My Pregnant Sister-in-Law Took the Cup Prepared by Her Mother-in-Law, but When the Family Blamed Me, Someone Suddenly Turned Pale

Nicholas held the phone as though the numbers written on the screen could disappear by touch.

“How much is left?” Teresa asked.

“Nothing.”

Don Arthur leaned against the wall.

“This is impossible. I informed the bank first thing in the morning so that the transfers would be checked.”

Teresa looked at Monica’s handcuffs.

“She prepared an escape route in advance.”

“In whose name is the account?” Nicholas asked.

He looked at the screen.

“In the name of Paula’s husband, Raul.”

Paula raised her head.

“Was Raul involved in this?”

No one had an answer to this question.

A few minutes later Raul called himself. His voice was no longer confident.

“Paula, your mother told me that she had everything under control.”

“What everything?”

“The money. The documents. The hotel.”

Paula’s lips trembled.

“Did my child die because you were fighting for the hotel?”

“I did not know that you would drink from the cup.”

Silence fell over the room.

Paula closed her eyes.

“So you knew that the cup was poisonous.”

Raul hung up immediately.

Teresa handed all the recordings over to the investigators. But her most difficult task was still ahead: proving the withdrawal of the money by Monica and Raul and the forgery of Don Arthur’s signatures.

Monica was transferred to a cell. Raul was arrested at the airport before he boarded the plane. He called Nicholas ten times.

“Do not answer your brother,” I told him.

“He is my brother.”

“And he participated in the death of my nephew.”

Nicholas lowered his eyes.

For the first time I did not want to make the decision for him. I wanted him to see the truth himself.

The next day we went to the police station to listen to the recording. Monica sat in the room, her hands placed on the table. When she heard her own voice, her face changed.

On the recording she said:

“After Elena gives birth to the child, everything will slip from our hands. First you must frighten her, then accuse her.”

Monica covered her ears with her hands.

“I did not say that.”

The investigator stopped the audio.

“That is your voice.”

“I am a mother!”

Nicholas answered for the first time.

“Mothers do not sell their children.”

Monica fell silent.

Paula gave testimony. Clara did too. The laboratory employee admitted that he had received money. Raul changed lawyers, but the new lawyer immediately requested to withdraw from the case when he saw the bank records.

The case reached court.

I went there only once, for the final hearing. I did not want to watch them being punished. I wanted the lie that had entered even my body to end.

The judge sentenced Monica for fraud, attempted poisoning, and falsification of evidence. Raul made a deal and confessed to the crime. Because of Clara’s testimony, her responsibility was reduced, but she left her job.

Paula did not meet her mother again after leaving the hospital.

One evening she came to me. She was holding a small white box.

“This is the baby’s ultrasound picture,” she told me.

I did not know what to say.

“It was not your fault,” I added.

Paula nodded.

“I know. But for a long time I believed that I had to be your enemy.”

We embraced each other. It was not forgiveness. We were simply two women standing before one lost child.

Don Arthur sold the hotel. With the money received, Nicholas opened a small maternity clinic in the same city where I spent the final months of my pregnancy. From the clinic windows vineyards could be seen in the morning, and in the evening orange light fell on the mountains.

My child was born on a cold morning in March. He was a boy.

When I heard the doctor say that he had heard his cry, I thought that the whole house, the whole hotel, and all the money had become unimportant in one moment.

Nicholas picked up the baby.

“What shall we name him?”

“Luka,” I said. “Because of the light.”

Weeks passed.

We moved into a new apartment. A small wooden table stood in the kitchen. In the morning Nicholas went to the clinic, while I fed Luka and sat by the window. His first drawing hung on the wall: three crooked people, one large sun, and a yellow spot that he himself called “the house.”

When the first snow came, Luka was already ten months old. He put his hand against the window and looked at me in amazement.

“Is this sugar fallen from the sky?” Nicholas asked.

Luka laughed.

And for the first time I understood that waking up without fear was possible.

Six months later Monica sent me a letter. I recognized her handwriting on the envelope. In the letter she wrote that she regretted it, that she wanted to see Paula, and that perhaps one day she could become a grandmother to Luka.

Nicholas placed the letter on the table.

“Do you want me to answer?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

I folded the sheet in two.

“She is no longer a person I need to save.”

It was not cruelty. It was simply a boundary that I drew very late, but nevertheless drew.

That evening I entered Luka’s room. The old clay cup with the golden sunflower stood beside the bed. The police had returned it to me as evidence, and for a long time I had not dared to touch it. Now there was no poison in it anymore. Inside lay Luka’s colored pencils.

The little boy held one red pencil in his hand.

“Mom, is this sunflower yours?”

“No, my love. Now it is yours.”

He took the pencil from the cup and drew a large, uneven sun on the paper.

I placed the cup on the windowsill. The morning light illuminated the golden flower.

That day, for the first time, I did not want to forget the past. I wanted it simply no longer to rule me.

Outside the window, snow was slowly falling.

Luka smiled.

And I left only pencils in the cup.

And this time, there was light in it.