I returned home with gifts bought for my beloved, but the empty rooms and one envelope frightened my wife

That night I entered the house with a diamond bracelet and black lace underwear bought for the woman I loved, but my wife and our three-month-old daughter were no longer there.

I was going up the steps and could not believe that the small light in front of the house was turned off. Claire always left it on. Even when I told her that my meeting had run late. Even when Hope was born and Claire had only an hour and a half of sleep at night.

The telephone rang in my pocket.

It was Samantha.

“Put on the perfume I love tomorrow, darling,” she wrote to me.

I smiled automatically. I had bags with gifts in my hands. With the other hand I was looking for the key.

I opened the door.

Inside, darkness met me.

“Claire?”

There was no answer.

I entered the hall and stopped immediately. The walnut table standing under the mirror had disappeared. The small ceramic bowl for the keys was no longer there. Instead of our wedding photograph on the wall, only two pale squares remained.

“Claire, where are you?”

My voice returned strangely in the empty house.

I entered the living room. The sofa was gone. The carpet was gone. The armchair in which Claire nursed Hope had disappeared. The baby swing, blankets, and basket were no longer there either.

My television was in its place. The speakers. The leather armchair. The cabinet of expensive drinks.

Everything that was only mine had remained untouched.

Everything that belonged to Claire’s and Hope’s life had been taken away.

A chill ran down my back.

“Claire!”

I ran up the stairs. Hope’s room door was open. The crib was still standing because it had been assembled in the room, but not one of the baby’s things remained there. No diapers, no bottles, no pacifier, no white rabbit that Hope held with her fingers before sleep.

I opened the wardrobe.

Empty.

I opened the drawers.

Empty.

Three days earlier Claire had been standing by the bed. Her eyes were red, and a small spot of Hope’s milk remained on her hand.

“Daniel, hold her for at least twenty minutes. I haven’t even taken a shower today.”

I looked at the telephone. Samantha’s message was waiting for me.

“I have work,” I told her. “A client is waiting for me.”

Claire looked at me for a long time.

“Okay,” she said at last.

That night I heard this word everywhere in the house.

There were no longer any of her clothes in the bedroom. No shoes, medicines, charger, or things needed for breastfeeding either. My jackets were still hanging. The watches were arranged in the drawer. The shirt thrown on the floor in the morning was still in the same place.

Claire had broken nothing.

She had simply taken everything that was hers and left me everything that belonged to me.

I took the telephone and called her.

Voicemail.

Once more.

The same.

“Where are you? Where is Hope? Call me right now!” I wrote to her.

I also called her sister, Natalie. She did not answer me.

Fear turned into anger in me. How dare she take the child? How dare she empty the house without explaining anything to me?

I went down to the kitchen. Only one thing lay on the island—a thick, brownish folder. My name was written on it in Claire’s handwriting.

My hands began to tremble.

I opened the folder. On the very first page all my excuses stuck in my throat. And at the bottom there was one sentence whose reading I did not manage to finish, because the door handle slowly went down and someone turned the lock from outside…

The door opened and Natalie entered. She was holding a small black bag, and a thread from a baby’s white sock was wrapped around her fingers.

“Claire knew everything,” she said.

“Where is my daughter?”

“In a safe place.”

“I am her father!”

Natalie pointed at the folder.

“If you were a father, wouldn’t you be proving it now?”

“What does this mean?”

“Read.”

My bank transfers, hotel reservations, and the list of things bought for Samantha were written on the paper. Three dates were marked below in red pen.

“This is not only betrayal, Daniel,” Natalie said quietly. “You were forcing Claire to believe that she was losing her mind.”

“Nonsense.”

“Then why were you keeping her medicines in your own work cabinet?”

My breath caught. Only Samantha and I knew this detail.

Natalie took a telephone out of the bag.

“Now you will understand why Claire left.”

A recording started on the screen. First I heard my voice, then Samantha’s laughter. The conversation was about how they should convince the doctor that Claire was unstable and could no longer care for Hope.

“When did you record this?” I barely asked.

“On the day Claire first suspected that you would take the child from her alone.”

The recording stopped. Natalie took out a second sheet.

“Tomorrow morning we are going to the lawyer. But tonight there is one more thing you need to know. Samantha is already coming to your house…”

Natalie’s last words were still hanging in the air when car headlights lit up in the yard. It was Samantha. She got out of the silver car, holding the bags I had bought, and had on her face the smile that had always calmed me before.

“Daniel, open the door,” she called. “Why is Natalie here?”

Natalie locked the latch.

“Do not meet her,” she told me.

“This is my house.”

“No. Today you will learn for the first time whose name it is.”

She took a sheet signed by Claire from the folder. The corner of the paper was bent, and a dark trace of a notary’s seal could be seen on it.

“Six months ago Claire began an audit,” Natalie said. “She discovered that you were transferring money from the family joint account to finance Samantha’s store. But that was not the worst part.”

Samantha knocked on the window.

“Daniel, tell her that all this is a lie!”

Natalie turned on the recording once more.

My voice sounded in the room.

“If we tell the doctor that Claire has difficulty perceiving reality after childbirth, we will at least temporarily obtain guardianship.”

Samantha’s voice followed:

“While she is in the hospital, we will sell the apartment too and clean out the accounts too.”

My knees gave way. I leaned on the table, but the wooden edge cut my palm.

“It is edited,” I said.

Natalie shook her head.

“The recording was examined by experts. The voice is genuine. Moreover, you yourself sent Samantha the message in which you confirmed the plan.”

Samantha’s smile disappeared.

“Daniel, I will explain everything.”

“What is there to explain?”

“You told me that Claire was getting in your way.”

These words burst out from my own mouth, because suddenly I remembered the conversation that evening. That was exactly what I had told her. And Natalie did not take her eyes off me.

“Claire has already filed an application for a protective order. Hope is also in her temporary guardianship. Tomorrow morning we are going to court.”

A strong banging was heard at the door.

Samantha stepped back.

“Did the police come?”

“No,” Natalie said, looking at the telephone. “It is Claire.”

A video call appeared on the screen. Claire’s face was tired, but for the first time I could no longer see fear in her eyes. Hope was sleeping on her shoulder.

“Daniel,” she said, “I ask only one answer from you. Where did you hide the money transferred from the family account?”

I had no answer.

At that moment my telephone lit up again. I saw the subject of a letter from an unknown number and immediately understood that the case Claire had prepared was much bigger than Samantha…