On My Daughter’s Birthday Not a Single Guest Came, Then I Made One Call to Paola and Mother’s Face Changed

Seven-year-old Valentina sat by the window and looked toward the door, while one golden star on the silver crown stuck to her head trembled with every movement.

The party was supposed to start at three. It was four o’clock.

Fifteen purple cups lay on the table, I put a small candy in each, and the seven candles on the unicorn cake shone as if noise, laughter, and the clatter of children’s colorful shoes were soon supposed to enter the house.

But only Rodrigo, Valentina, her grandparents Nora and Francisco, and I were in our house.

“There’s probably a traffic jam,” I told my daughter for the third time.

Valentina nodded.

“Mom, maybe nobody will come?”

She asked the question quietly, as if she already knew the answer.

I felt cold in my stomach.

“Everyone will come, sweetheart. They’re just late.”

At twenty past four, the phone rang. The name of Mariana, Renata’s mother, appeared on the screen.

“How is Vale?” she asked.

“How should she be? She’s waiting for the party. Where are you?”

Silence fell.

“You wrote to us this morning that she had a fever and everything was canceled.”

I jumped to my feet.

“I didn’t write anything.”

Mariana sent me a screenshot. The message had been sent in my name. My photograph was visible there, and it said: “Valentina has a fever. We are canceling the party. Thank you for understanding.”

The number was not mine.

But the photograph really was mine—the one I had shared in the family group several months earlier.

“Isn’t this you?” Mariana asked.

“No. But whoever sent it knew everything.”

They knew the time of the party, the children’s names, and also that the color at Valentina’s party was supposed to be purple. Only a few people had heard these details.

At six in the evening, six children still came. Some parents saw the message on the way, while others had already taken their child back.

Valentina blew out the candles. She even smiled.

But at every sound of the bell, she turned her head toward the door.

That look remained inside me that night.

Everything had begun several months earlier, when my sister Paola’s nine-year-old son, Tomas, began mocking Valentina. At first it looked like simple jokes. Then her pencils were hidden, her bag was torn, and in the hallway Tomas and two children cornered my daughter against the wall.

I went to the school not to fight, but for answers.

“We will not call the children bad,” coordinator Elena told me. “But the rules definitely have to change.”

“That is exactly what I’m asking for,” I answered. “My daughter needs to feel safe.”

But Paola called me that same evening.

“They’re children, Checho. Why do you give everything such importance?”

“Because Valentina comes home crying.”

“You always exaggerate when it concerns your child.”

Several weeks later Valentina told me that Tomas was saying to her that we were not a real family because I had been adopted.

I called Paola.

“Where did he hear those words?”

“Probably from television.”

“A nine-year-old child could not invent by himself what he says.”

“Do you want to appear as the victim again?”

My mother, Nora, heard the conversation from the other room.

“You were always my child,” she told me.

That word always troubled me. As if I first had to be something else in order to become their child.

That night, after putting Valentina to sleep, I looked at the cake left on the kitchen table. Beside it lay my daughter’s little crown, whose golden star was bent at the corner.

I opened again the screenshot Mariana had sent.

Then she wrote me one more sentence: “Paola told me yesterday that if we received any change concerning the party, it would be another number, because there were problems with your phone.”

At that moment I realized that this was no longer an accidental lie.

But I still did not know how far they had gone.

The next morning I entered lawyer Irakli’s office, and in my bag I carried Valentina’s bent star. Irakli put my phone on the table, then reached toward a black folder and told me:

“Cecilia, before you call Paola, you have to see this…”

Irakli’s hand stopped on the folder.

“First tell me, when was this message sent?” he asked me.

“At ten fifteen in the morning.”

He opened several windows on the phone and turned the screen toward me.

“Was your phone at home at that time?”

“Yes. On the charger beside the bed.”

“And who knew the password?”

I remembered the answer immediately. I had told Paola once, when we were taking Mother to the hospital. I had not paid attention then.

Irakli sighed.

“This is no longer only a family grievance. Someone deliberately created evidence as if you had canceled the party.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you that yet.”

That same evening I went to Paola’s house. She opened the door, and her eyes immediately moved to the phone clutched in my hand.

“Why did you come?”

“To talk about the message sent in my name.”

Her face did not change.

“Probably someone was joking.”

“Mariana told me that you warned her.”

Paola chuckled.

“Now you’re accusing me?”

“I’m just asking you for now.”

At that moment Tomas appeared on the stairs. In his hand he held a small tool resembling my old key, which had disappeared from the house several weeks earlier.

Paola immediately snatched it from him.

“Go to your room.”

The boy first looked at me, then at his mother.

“But Dad said that soon everything would be ours.”

Paola’s smile disappeared.

And for the first time I thought that canceling the party might only have been the beginning.

The file I received from Irakli was supposed to give me the answer, but when he played the audio recording, the very first voice froze my blood. It was Paola’s voice, although only one phrase sounded in the room:

“If Cecilia resists us, the child will stay with us…”

But then another voice joined the recording, and its first words changed everything…

The second voice in the recording belonged to Rodrigo.

“Stop talking about the child, Paola. This is already crossing the line.”

Paola answered:

“Cecilia crossed the line when she decided to turn her back on the family.”

Irakli stopped the recording.

The wall clock ticked noisily in the office. My fingers gripped the silver crown that I had taken from the bag. The golden star was still bent.

“Where did you find this?” I asked.

“We extracted the audio file from your phone’s backup. On the day of the party, your account began working from another device. The number of that device belongs to Paola’s phone.”

“But why?”

Irakli took several sheets from the folder.

“Because they wanted you to appear emotional, make yourself uncomfortable for everyone, and then ask for help. Paola has a large debt.”

On the sheet was a loan of eighty thousand lari issued with my signature. Below was the payment deadline, which expired in two weeks.

“This is my signature,” I whispered.

“Yes. But the second page says that if she could not repay the debt, you waived your share of your parents’ house.”

I could not breathe in.

For years I had paid the utilities, insurance, and repairs for my parents’ house. I thought I was helping the family. In reality, they had turned my help into a weapon for Paola.

The door opened and Paola entered. My mother and Rodrigo followed behind her.

“Was coming to Irakli necessary?” Paola asked me.

“Who canceled my daughter’s party?”

“Not me.”

Irakli played the recording. Paola’s voice sounded in the room:

“If we send the message correctly, the guests won’t come. Cecilia will believe that she is unwanted by everyone.”

Paola turned pale.

My mother grabbed the chair.

“When did you say this?”

“It was taken out of context!”

Rodrigo stepped forward.

“Paola, that is your voice.”

“You’re on her side too?”

“I’m on the child’s side,” he answered.

Irakli placed another document on the table.

“There is also camera footage. On the morning of the party, Paola entered your house with a spare key, took the phone, and sent the message.”

Paola’s lips trembled.

“Tomas gave me the key.”

“I didn’t know it would end so badly,” Tomas shouted, standing at the door.

For the first time I heard fear in his voice.

I looked at Paola.

“Why did you do this to my child?”

She hid her eyes.

“Because you always took what belonged to me. Our parents’ attention, money, the house… everything.”

“I had given you everything.”

“That is exactly why I thought you would obey me to the end.”

Those words hurt me more than the recording.

Irakli gathered the papers.

“Tomorrow morning we are going to the police. But there is one more problem.”

He took out the last document. My name and Rodrigo’s were written on it, and below was a temporary guardianship statement.

“Paola has already filed an application claiming that you created an ‘unstable environment’ for Valentina. If this document takes effect, her ability to make decisions related to the child’s school will be temporarily restricted.”

Paola raised her head.

“I only wanted help.”

Then the phone rang. It was an unknown number. Irakli answered, listened for several seconds, and his face changed.

“Cecilia, this call is from the school. They said that someone requested permission to take Valentina and is already standing at the school door…”