A Vagabond Asked Me to Marry Him Because He Had One Month Left — and My Lawyer’s Face Changed When Reading the Letter

That morning, Lari was sitting by the pedestrian crossing and holding cardboard on which it said: “Marry me. I have only one month left.”

The winter wind drove papers lying on the ground. Steam gathered on my coffee cup, while both of Lari’s hands were trembling so much that the black coffee almost spilled over.

“Lari, what does this mean?” I asked and crouched down in front of him.

First he looked at my shoes, then raised his face.

“At the clinic they told me, if I’m lucky, one month.”

“What happened to you?”

“The liver. It almost does not work anymore.”

Something caught in my throat. For two years, every morning, before going to work, I bought coffee for him. Milky coffee for myself, unsweetened black coffee for him. I knew at what time he appeared at the entrance to the metro and how much the fast-walking people annoyed him.

But that morning I noticed for the first time that the canvas bag lying at his feet was wet and torn, while an old watch was strapped to his left wrist. Instead of glass, the watch had transparent plastic fitted into it.

“Why are you asking me this?” I asked.

Lari began straightening the edge of the cardboard with his finger.

“I don’t want to die as if I had never existed. I don’t want the city to write only a number somewhere on a form about me.”

“Marriage is not a solution.”

“I know. But you still came every day.”

These words struck me more strongly than his illness. I was single, and help had always seemed easier to me than saying no.

Two days later we were standing in a small courtroom. The judge pushed the documents toward us.

“Are you really doing this voluntarily?” he asked me.

Lari looked toward me.

“She knows me better than many living people.”

I signed.

Eleven minutes later I was his wife. We had neither a ring, nor flowers, nor guests. I was left only with a blue plastic folder, where I put the certificate, and the ticking of Lari’s old watch, which sounded excessively loud throughout the room.

Three weeks later I was sitting beside his bed in the hospice. Raindrops fell against the window.

“Sara, if my brother comes, don’t open the door,” he told me quietly.

“Victor?”

Lari closed his eyes.

“If he tells you that he cared for me, don’t believe him.”

“Why?”

He did not have time to answer. His hand relaxed in my fingers.

After the funeral I thought everything was over. But yesterday I found a white, thick envelope in the mailbox. My name was written on it in Lari’s trembling handwriting. The postmark was dated the day before his death.

I sat down at the kitchen table. The envelope smelled strongly of lemon and hospital. I thought I would read a final thank-you or a small joke.

But after the first sentence my fingers froze.

“Sara, if you are reading this, I can no longer protect you. Do not trust my brother. He knows that you are now my wife and will soon come to take what you do not know belongs to you…”

At that moment someone knocked three times on the door. I had the paper in my hand, while the lock slowly turned…

Victor was standing at the door. He was a tall, well-groomed man, holding a leather bag in his hand.

“Sara? I am Lari’s brother. I need to talk to you.”

“I have already received the letter.”

His smile disappeared immediately.

“What letter?”

“Lari’s last letter.”

Victor looked around the room and stopped his gaze on the blue plastic folder.

“He was sick. In the end he could no longer think.”

“Then why was he afraid of you?”

“You know nothing about our family.”

“That is exactly why tell me why you came.”

He took documents out of the bag.

“This marriage must be annulled. Lari was confused before his death, and you took advantage of his weakness.”

I wanted to laugh, but I could not.

“Me? I bought him coffee every day, while where were you?”

Victor took a step forward.

“I will come again tomorrow. This time not alone.”

I locked the door and looked at Lari’s letter. On the last page there was only one address—the old warehouse by the river—and one phrase:

“There you will find what will confirm my words.”

I went there at night. The iron door smelled of rust. Inside I found a small recorder, but as soon as I switched it on, the telephone rang.

“If you listen to the recording, you will have no way back,” an unfamiliar voice told me.

“Who are you?”

In response I heard only a whisper:

“Victor has already arrived at your house…”

And at that same moment a car door slammed outside…

In the darkness of the warehouse the telephone almost fell from my hand. From the window I saw Victor get out of a black car. Another man was with him.

I put the recorder into my jacket pocket and ran out through the back door. My foot slipped on the ice near the riverbank, but I did not stop. I returned home only at dawn and immediately called Marina, the lawyer indicated in Lari’s letter.

An hour later I was sitting in her small office. A brown folder lay on the table, and beside it were the recorder and a sealed envelope.

“Before we open this, you need to know everything,” Marina told me. “Lari did not end up on the street by accident.”

“Then why did he not tell me?”

“He was afraid that you would also end up in danger.”

Marina opened the envelope and handed me the first sheet. It said that Lari was actually one of the owners of the family construction company. His brother, Victor, had been hiding the company’s money for years. When Lari began an audit, Victor arranged an attack on him, and then slowly poisoned him.

“The liver failure was not an illness?” I asked.

“No. The examination found traces of a rare poison in his blood.”

Marina turned on the recorder.

Lari’s voice sounded in the room, tired but clear.

“Sara, I did not marry you because I was afraid of dying alone. Through marriage you became my legal heir. Victor now believes that everything disappeared with me. But I left the company shares, bank records, and evidence of his crime for you.”

My breath caught.

“Why me?” I asked.

On the recorder Lari was silent for several seconds.

“Because you were the only one who asked nothing from me. If I died, you had to protect all this and not lose yourself.”

Marina took out a second document.

“Here is Lari’s signed statement and the materials prepared for the investigation. But we have one problem.”

“What problem?”

“Victor has already asked the court to declare the marriage a sham transaction. And he knows that you came to us.”

At that very moment Marina’s telephone rang. She looked at the screen and turned pale.

“This is not from the police,” she said. “Lari’s doctor is calling me.”

When she answered the call, she heard several words, then slowly stood up.

“Sara, Lari’s medical records at the clinic have been changed. The original file disappeared this morning…”

I went to the window. Victor was standing on the other side of the street and looking directly at me. Then he moved his lips, as if he said only one word:

“It’s over.”

But he did not yet know that Lari’s most serious evidence was not in the clinic, but in my hands…