Part 4 — My Husband Gave My Precious Membership to His Mistress and Asked Me to Leave Quietly — But His Face Suddenly Lost Color

The police were on the way, but Lucas still thought he could control the situation.

He stopped the car and did not end the video call.

“Grace, listen to me,” he said. “All of this can be fixed.”

“You took out a loan on my building.”

“It was a temporary loan.”

“Without my signature.”

“You were still living with me.”

The old confidence returned to his voice. As if marriage were a right of ownership over a person.

Archil put his hand on the table.

“Mr. Bennett, you will end the conversation now. The bank accounts connected to you are in the process of being frozen.”

“Who do you think you are?”

“The person representing your wife.”

Lucas looked at me again.

“Grace, tell him that this is a family matter.”

I looked at his face on the screen for a long time. Behind his ear was the same small black pen that he usually twirled during meetings. How many times had I seen that pen in our kitchen while he told me that he was tired and did not feel like talking.

Now his fingers could no longer control the pen.

“It was a family matter when you were simply lying to me,” I told him. “You turned it into a property crime.”

Natalie put another sheet of paper on the table.

“Grace, the police have arrived at the building. Your financial director is there too.”

Lucas immediately called another number.

“Daniel, take all the documents. Everything. Do not let anyone touch them.”

An answer came from the speaker.

“Mr. Bennett, I have already spoken with the investigators.”

“What do you mean, you spoke?”

“I mean that my lawyer advised me to stop cooperating with you.”

Lucas stared frozen at the phone.

His voice, which I had heard in the recording a few minutes earlier, now stood alive before him. He himself had said that I understood nothing. He himself had said that in the end I would be grateful. Those words sounded for the first time as they sounded to others — not like a joke or a strategy, but like an admission.

Sienna stood beside the door.

“You told me the building was yours,” she said.

“Now is not the time for this.”

“This is exactly the time.”

She took off my robe and placed it on the chair. Golden letters were visible on the white fabric: G. H.

“Is this your wife’s too?” she asked.

Lucas could not answer.

Sienna left the robe on the table and walked out of the room. Her steps made a sharp sound on the marble floor. I did not try to follow her.

I did not want to watch the destruction of her life. Getting my life back was enough.

The police found Lucas in the underground parking lot of the building. They did not arrest him at that exact moment, but made him sign an obligation to appear and took away his passport. A case was opened concerning financial fraud, forged documents, and the illegal encumbrance of someone else’s property.

When the investigator asked him why he had used my name, Lucas said:

“Because she is my wife.”

I heard this phrase that same evening, when the investigator sent me the recording.

I was sitting in the kitchen. My mother’s old cup stood on the table, and a small tea ring remained at its bottom. I played the recording from the beginning.

“She is my wife.”

This time his voice was no longer addressed to me. It seemed to come from a room where I had never been.

I realized that for years I had allowed Lucas the right to answer in my place.

The next day his things no longer belonged in our house.

The bedroom wardrobe was half-empty. Only one old watch lay on his shelf, which he had forgotten to take. In the study stood the frame of Lucas’s photograph, but the photograph had been removed. The glass shone dustily.

Most of all, a small drawer caught my eye, where my copper key had lain for years.

I picked up the key.

The lion’s head still looked the same, as if silently waiting for me.

Three weeks later, the court returned all the building’s accounts to me by temporary order. The bank confirmed the forged signature. Part of the money Lucas had taken was found in his personal account, and part had been transferred to an apartment bought for Sienna.

Sienna gave testimony.

I had nothing against her. She believed Lucas’s lies because I myself had believed in my marriage.

Lucas asked me to meet several times.

The first time he said that he had made a mistake.

The second time he said that he could not live without me.

The third time he wrote me only one sentence: “We were happy once, weren’t we?”

I did not answer.

Four months passed.

I arranged a small office on the fifth floor of my mother’s building. Lucas used to sit there and assure me that I was overly emotional in financial matters. Now the roofs of the city were visible from my desk. In the morning I opened the window, turned on the old radio, and read every contract myself.

Natalie stayed with me as manager, but I made the final decisions.

At first my hands trembled.

Then they did not.

Every other Friday I still went to Aurelia’s Club. Not because I could not overcome the old habit, but because the place that had been handed over to someone else had to become mine again.

One day my niece, little Mia, entered the office. She was holding a colorful sheet of paper.

“Aunt Grace, I drew this for you.”

A large building was drawn on the paper. A yellow sun could be seen on the roof. A little woman stood by the door, holding a key.

“Is this me?” I asked.

“Yes. You are locking the door so bad people cannot come in.”

I laughed.

“Sometimes good people should not be allowed in either, if they do not knock on the door.”

That same evening Lucas’s lawyer called me.

“Mr. Bennett wants to begin negotiations with you.”

“About what?”

“Regarding the property, the divorce, and the return of personal belongings.”

“Let him take his things.”

“He says that your marriage still has a chance.”

I looked down from the window. At the entrance, the copper plaque gleamed in the streetlight. My name stood there calmly.

“Tell him that he had a chance when the truth was still enough,” I answered. “Now I only want peace.”

“Is that your final answer?”

“Yes.”

This time my voice did not tremble.

The first snow of winter came at the end of December. In the morning the city seemed quiet to me. I was alone in the office and watched the snowflakes pressed against the window.

I took the small copper key from my pocket and placed it on the table.

Its lion’s head shone in the weak light. Years ago I thought that this key was for locking away the people left behind the door. Now I understood that it was for me.

That evening I locked the office door myself.

And for the first time I left the key with no one.