Part 4 — At the grave, an unknown woman handed me an envelope and mentioned a promise in my daughter’s name—then suddenly turned pale

At six o’clock the next morning, the telephone rang.

Irakli’s lawyer’s number appeared on the screen.

“Mrs. Marina, I advise you not to leave the house today,” the man said in a tense voice. “Mr. Kavtaradze has filed a request for temporary custody of the child.”

“Why are you calling me?”

He was silent for several seconds.

“Because last night I found out what he intends to use in court.”

“And?”

“I am no longer handling his case.”

I was standing by the window. The morning light fell on the kitchen floor as a thin, pale strip. Elene’s letter lay on the table. In its corner was a small ink stain, exactly like the ones my daughter left by pressing her finger on the top of a pen.

“Why did you change your mind?” I asked.

“Because he told me that you would kidnap the child. But I heard his own voice in the recording and realized that this battle no longer resembled justice.”

“What recording?”

“The one your daughter had.”

The call ended.

Luka was standing in the hallway, with small baseballs drawn on his pajamas.

“Grandma, do I have to go to school today?”

There was such caution in his eyes, as if he was afraid of the answer.

“If you want, go. If you do not want to, we will stay home.”

“I want to be with you.”

I knelt before him.

“Luka, what you heard yesterday is not your fault. Nor was your mother’s death your fault.”

“Does my father hate me?”

“No. He was hiding from his own fear. But his choice does not determine your worth.”

At that moment Nino came in. She held a folder in her hand.

“The police called me,” she said. “They found the clinic archive. The old hospital basement is being cleaned after the flood. Another camera recording was found there.”

Irakli could no longer say that the voice had been falsified.

We went to the city police station. A bitter smell of coffee stood in the corridor, and on the wall a clock ticked loudly every second. Investigator Salome Japaridze started the tape on the computer.

A hospital corridor from ten years earlier appeared on the screen. Elene was lying on a stretcher. Nino stood beside her. A few minutes later Irakli entered the frame. He held a folder in his hand.

“I want to speak with Elene,” he said.

“She is in surgery,” Nino answered.

“My name must not appear on the child’s birth certificate.”

“That is for the mother to decide.”

Irakli came closer to the camera.

“If anyone says anything, this clinic will close. I will make Nino and Elene lose everything.”

I was looking at the screen and could no longer recognize myself. For ten years I had thought that my daughter was hiding a secret. In reality, she had been fighting alone against a man whom I considered respectable.

Salome stopped the recording.

“This is enough to begin an investigation. But there is one more thing.”

She opened a file.

“Irakli Kavtaradze’s wife at that time, Tamar, came to us yesterday. She said that she knew your daughter.”

Nino’s face tensed.

“Tamar knew?”

“Not only did she know,” Salome said. “She stated that Irakli had been hiding the child’s inheritance for ten years. And this morning she herself brought the documents.”

The court took place that same week. Irakli came in an expensive suit, but for the first time he no longer looked like a man before whom every door opened by itself. His lawyer sat beside me. Nino sat in the back, her hands placed on her knees. Luka was with me and had his drawing in his pocket.

Irakli told the judge:

“I only want a relationship with my son.”

I answered calmly:

“A relationship begins with responsibility. And you avoided responsibility for ten years.”

They played the recording.

His own voice sounded in the courtroom.

“You will not give the child my surname.”

Irakli lowered his head.

“Tell the mother that the father is unknown.”

Luka squeezed my hand.

The court did not give Irakli immediate custody. An investigation began into threats, falsification of recordings, and hiding the child’s inheritance. The documents brought by Tamar confirmed that Irakli had transferred the money intended for Elene into his own accounts.

But I did not perceive this money as a victory.

It was what belonged to my daughter.

Several weeks later Irakli sent me a letter.

“Marina, I made a mistake. I want to be a father to Luka.”

I looked at this sentence for a long time.

Then I answered:

“You should have chosen to be Luka’s father when Elene was alive. Now there will be a place in his life only by his wish, not by your remorse.”

Luka read the letter.

“Grandma, was the answer right?”

“I don’t know, my child. But it was the truth.”

Three months later we moved to a new city. I rented a small apartment near the river. In the morning I took Luka to school, then worked in a library. In the evenings he did his homework at the kitchen table, and I baked him pancakes the way Elene liked them.

Luka began practicing with the baseball team. In the very first game he sent the ball over the fence and ran toward me with such joy, as if the whole world were on his side.

“Would Mom have liked it?” he asked.

“Very much.”

“How do you know?”

“Because when you were little, on your birthday she always said that one day you would run the fastest.”

It was not a lie. I was simply now taking care of every word left by Elene.

In winter the first snow came. Luka drew a house on the window, and beside it he drew four people.

“Why four?” I asked.

“Mom, me, you, and Nino. She helped us too, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Dad?”

Luka stopped the pencil in his hand.

“Not yet,” he said. “First he has to learn himself how not to abandon people.”

I said nothing.

That evening another message came from Irakli. This time it contained only one sentence: “Wherever you go, I am still part of your family.”

I closed the phone.

I went into Luka’s room. He was sleeping, with a baseball beside his pillow. The quiet light of snow entered through the window.

The small white flower brought from Elene’s grave lay on my desk. Years ago it had lain at Nino’s feet, and now I kept it in a transparent jar. Beside it lay Elene’s letter, folded and protected.

I touched the jar.

I was unable to save my daughter.

But I managed to ensure that her child would no longer grow up in a lie.

In the morning Luka opened the window. Cold air entered the room, and the petal of the white flower in the jar moved lightly.

For the first time, Elene’s letter no longer hurt me.

It lit my way.