Part 4 — After the Divorce, My Ex-Husband Tried to Humiliate Me at the Wedding, but the Person Standing Behind Me Suddenly Erased His Smile

Daniel put the call on speaker.

“Continue,” I said.

The woman’s quiet breathing could be heard from the phone.

“There are adoption documents in the folder,” she said. “But Marcus’s signature is also on them.”

Marcus jumped up from his place.

“This is illegal! No one has the right to touch my family documents.”

“Nina was never your family,” I said calmly.

“You used her against me!”

“No. You used money and forged signatures. Nina simply ended up in the plan that you created yourself.”

Two investigators stood at the hall door. One of them held an official folder.

Marcus looked toward them and immediately took out his phone.

“I am calling my lawyer.”

The first call was not answered.

On the second, the lawyer said only a few words to Marcus and hung up.

“Did he refuse me?” Marcus asked, as if this were the greatest betrayal.

“He said he has a conflict of interest,” Daniel replied. “He is already listed as a witness in your company’s case.”

Chloe stood by the wall. In her hand, one white flower from the wedding bouquet was being squeezed so tightly that its petals were torn.

“You told me everything was legal,” she said.

Marcus looked at her.

“Now is not the time for this.”

“It is exactly the time.”

She took off her engagement ring and placed it on the table.

“You were with me because you thought Elene had lost everything. In reality, you wanted to take everything from her life.”

Marcus reached his hand toward her.

“Chloe, wait.”

“I waited for you for five years,” she replied. “Now you wait for me.”

The investigators led Marcus aside. They did not handcuff him immediately. First they asked him questions, showed him the documents, and took his phone.

That turned out to be more difficult.

He could no longer tell everyone that I was inventing things. His own words already existed in the recording.

One of the investigators turned on the speaker.

“Listen, Mr. Marcus.”

His old voice sounded in the room again.

“She is a lawyer, but very emotional. No one will believe her.”

Marcus froze.

What he had said sounded more cruel from the outside than when he had stood in front of me. The man heard his own voice and realized for the first time that that night he had sold not only money, but also his own future.

I covered Nina’s ears.

“Mom, why are they saying bad words to that man?” she asked me.

“Because grown-ups sometimes learn to admit their mistakes late.”

“Shall we go home?”

“Yes.”

Before we left the hall, Marcus called after me.

“Elene, you know that because of this everything will collapse?”

I stopped.

“You destroyed it yourself.”

“We can make an agreement.”

“We already had an agreement. You forged it.”

“I may end up in prison.”

For the first time there was no arrogance in his voice. Only fear remained.

I did not turn toward him.

“I am no longer responsible for saving you.”

That night, after returning home, I put Nina to sleep and remained alone at the kitchen table. The phone kept ringing. Some were journalists, some old colleagues, some unknown people who had already learned my story.

I answered none of the calls.

Daniel put down two glasses of tea.

“Are you all right?”

“Not yet.”

“But?”

I looked out the window. The city lights spread across the rainy glass.

“But for the first time I know that I will no longer be as I was then.”

The case lasted several months. The audio recording was confirmed. The bank data showed that Marcus had transferred the money gradually. The forged signatures were confirmed by examination. My share in the company was returned to me, while the remaining money was returned to the clients’ fund.

Marcus was sentenced, but I did not wait in court for his downfall. Its consequences existed without me.

I only did what I should have done from the beginning—I did not hide the truth.

Three weeks after the wedding, I inspected our old apartment. The rooms were empty. Marcus had even taken the furniture from there, as if he could take the memories away together with the walls.

Only one thing had remained in the corner of the living room.

My old wooden desk.

In the drawer I found the old needle from Nina’s little bag embroidered with a red star. It had been left there years ago, when I made the stitch on the bag.

I placed the needle on my palm and realized that for the first time I was no longer afraid in that house.

Six months passed.

We moved to a small seaside town. Daniel opened a legal consulting office there, while I began working on corporate fraud cases.

Every morning I walked Nina to school. On the way we stopped at the same bakery. She chose a cinnamon bun, while I drank black tea.

A new drawing hung on the door of her room: four people, a yellow house, and a huge sun above.

“Is this us?” I asked.

“Yes,” Nina told me. “You, me, Dad, and our house.”

“Where is Marcus?”

Nina put the pencil on the table.

“He does not live in our drawing.”

This answer struck me more strongly than any court decision.

Several weeks later I received a letter from Marcus. It was short.

“Elene, I want to speak to you only once. Now I understand everything. If you wait for me, I will prove that I can change.”

I held the letter in my hand for a long time.

Then I put it in Nina’s bag, not so that she would read it, but because I no longer wanted this paper to be in my home.

Daniel asked me:

“Will you write him an answer?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

I wrote one sentence on the paper.

“Change is possible, but returning to my life is no longer necessary.”

I sent the letter and turned off the phone.

That evening the first snow came. Nina stood by the window and pressed her hands against the glass.

“Mom, look how quietly it comes.”

“Some of the most important things come exactly this way,” I told her.

On the kitchen shelf stood a small glass box. Inside was my old needle, the one with which I embroidered the red star on Nina’s bag.

Nina returned to the room and added one more star to the drawing.

I opened the box, took out the needle, and carefully returned it to the bag’s handle.

This time my stitch was no longer trembling.

My life was no longer what Marcus had left me.

It was what I had saved.