Part 4 — My Parents Sued Me in Court for My Grandmother’s Estate, but the Judge Looked at My Case and My Father’s Face Suddenly Changed

“How much was transferred?” I asked, unable to stand up.

Rain fell on the courtroom windows in separate drops. I held the phone to my ear, and with my other hand I gripped the wooden box as if the little pen cap remaining inside it could calm me.

“Two hundred thousand dollars,” the accountant replied. “From an account that your parents jointly managed.”

My father immediately jumped up.

“This is illegally obtained information!”

“You do not yet know what information it is,” I told him.

“You are trying to destroy us!”

“I am only listening.”

The judge struck the gavel on the table.

“Everyone sit in their places.”

Patricia grabbed Harper by the hand.

“Tell him to make all this stop.”

Harper did not smile for the first time.

“Patricia, I can no longer do that.”

“You are our lawyer!”

“I was. Until I found out that there are bank movements hidden from me.”

My father looked at him.

“We promised you money.”

“That is exactly why I am ending my representation,” Harper answered and closed his bag.

These words affected my parents more strongly than Grandma’s video. For the first time they felt that control was slipping from their hands.

The judge looked at the court clerk.

“Call the court investigator and the bank supervisor. Also notify the prosecutor’s office about possible fraud.”

My mother turned toward me.

“Anna, this is your family. Do you really want us to go to prison?”

There was no regret in her voice. Only fear.

I looked at her for a long time. In childhood, when I was afraid, I used to hold my mother’s hand. Now her hand lay on the table, the old red polish near her nails was peeling, but I no longer reached for it.

“I will not take you to prison,” I told her. “You yourselves went as far as where you are now.”

My father shook his head.

“You always thought you were better than others.”

“No. I simply no longer think that I am less than you.”

The hearing was postponed until after midday. In the corridor the investigator led my parents away separately. I stood by the wall and watched my father search his pocket for the car keys. They fell from his hand and hit the floor noisily.

That evening the accountant sent me all the accounts. It turned out that for years my parents had been taking money from the trust account that Grandma had established for me. Each transfer had the same purpose: “family need.”

But family need had never been my education, treatment, or life. The money went toward my brother’s debts, my mother’s expensive trips, and saving my father’s small business.

Evelyn knew everything.

She simply did not want me to lose my whole life fighting with them.

The next day, at eight in the morning, I went to the prosecutor’s office myself. In the elevator I looked at the metal wall and realized for the first time how strange it is to give official testimony about your own family.

The female investigator, Nora, poured me water.

“Are you sure you want to continue?”

“Yes.”

“This may continue for years.”

“I have already been waiting my whole life for them to stop using me.”

The following weeks passed in papers, interrogations, and telephone calls. My mother called me every day. At first she cried. Then she threatened me. Finally she cried again.

“I met you at school only once,” she told me one evening. “I did not understand why you were angry with me.”

“Because that day was my award ceremony and you told me you were late for my brother’s game.”

“I do not remember that.”

“I remember.”

The call ended.

The legal examination confirmed every transfer. The court imposed a freeze on my parents’ property. Then the day of the agreement came. I did not demand their imprisonment, because part of the money had already been returned and I was the only injured party. They signed an obligation to return the entire amount and no longer have the right to open any account in my name.

After signing, my father raised his head.

“Are you satisfied now?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

“For you not to have to deceive me anymore.”

For the first time he had nothing to answer me.

Several days later the investigation let me listen to the audio recording of their questioning. I was sitting in a small room, wearing headphones, and listening to my own parents.

“Anna will stay silent anyway,” my father said in the recording. “It has always been that way her whole life.”

My mother laughed.

“If we say that she is mentally disturbed, everyone will believe her.”

I closed my eyes.

These were their voices, but for the first time I was hearing them from the outside. I was no longer the child who tried to find a remnant of love behind every harsh phrase.

The recording ended.

Nora was sitting in the room and said nothing.

“Do you want me to stop it?” she asked.

“No. I will listen to it to the end.”

When I returned home, I entered Grandma’s room. I had removed almost all the furniture because I intended to sell her house and use a small part of the money to finance a home for the elderly. Only the armchair standing by the window remained in the room.

One thin fiber of the green shawl had remained on its armrest.

And the small wooden box lay on the table.

I opened it. The pen cap was still inside. The little star shone in the sunlight.

That night I did not cry for the first time.

Three months passed.

I moved into a small apartment on the other side of the city. In the mornings I lectured at the Academy of Military Law, and in the evenings I prepared the documents of the foundation named after Grandma. The foundation would help young lawyers who could not continue their studies because of family poverty.

On my desk there were two cups: one for coffee, and the other for pencils. On Sundays I went to the market and always bought apple pie, because Evelyn thought that any difficult week should end with a warm pie.

One evening my little nephew, Lucas, came to me. At his parents’ house no one asked him what he felt, so he liked being with me.

He drew four figures on a sheet of paper. One had big ears, another held a hammer in his hand, and the third had empty pockets.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“This is you,” he told me.

“Why do I have empty pockets?”

“Because Grandma said you do not think about money. You help others.”

Lucas then drew a small star.

“What is this?”

“Your sign.”

I looked at him and smiled.

“No, this is Grandma’s sign.”

“Now it belongs to you too.”

That same night I received a message from my mother. It said: “Come, let us start over. Family is still family.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I sent only one reply: “Starting over is possible when you do not hide the truth from the past. And I am no longer going back.”

No reply came.

On the first day of winter, snow began to fall. Returning from work, I opened the window. The noise of the street was quietly covered by white flakes.

I put the wooden box on the table and lifted the lid. The ivory-colored cap lay peacefully inside. I ran my fingers over the star engraved on it and remembered Evelyn’s last words: “Your truth is still truth even when you need your whole life to prove it.”

I closed the box.

This time I was writing my story.

And the pen no longer trembled.