Part 4 — In the Last Weeks of Pregnancy, My Husband Kicked Me Out of the House, but His Mother’s Call Put a Strange Fear on Eric’s Face

Lasha brought a finger to his lips, and I did not say a word.

The phone lay on the table. Chloe’s machine worked calmly, in an even rhythm.

“Mariam, can you hear me?” Eric said. “Tomorrow morning I will take the child.”

“You have not even asked about her medicines,” I answered.

“Because you turn everything into drama.”

“My operation, the intensive care unit, and her difficulty breathing are drama?”

“You have always been the victim.”

Lasha looked at the recording button.

“And if I resist?” I asked.

Eric chuckled.

“Then I will show everyone how unstable you are. Barbara cannot protect you either.”

As soon as the call ended, Barbara lowered her eyes.

“He did the same thing again,” she said. “He thought again that he would silence you with fear.”

Lasha handed the recording to the police officers.

“Now we already have a direct threat, a forged signature, and an attempt at illegally withdrawing funds.”

Eric called six more times.

The first time he was angry.

The second time he begged me.

The third time his mistress Alina shouted that the child’s fund belonged to her too.

But the fourth time Eric said:

“Mariam, come on, let us forget everything. We are a family.”

When I heard those words, something in my heart finally broke. Not because I missed him. Because I realized how many times I had given his lies the name “family.”

The next morning Eric really did come. Two lawyers were with him. He was wearing an expensive coat, although the traces of a sleepless night could be seen on his face.

“I want to be alone with the child,” he said.

“You cannot,” Lasha answered. “The court’s temporary order is already in force.”

Eric looked at him in astonishment.

“You still listen to my mother?”

Barbara was standing at the top of the stairs.

“No, Eric. This time I hear your own words.”

Lasha turned on the recording.

At first Eric shook his head to the side.

“This is fabricated.”

Then he heard his own voice: “The child is her problem.”

His face slowly turned pale.

In the second recording he was saying: “Mariam will not find out anything.”

Eric grabbed the back of the armchair.

“I did not say that.”

“You did,” Barbara answered. “And I listened to it all night.”

Alina stepped backward in the room.

“Eric, you told me the money was yours.”

“Be quiet.”

“You told me the child had no fund at all.”

“Be quiet, Alina!”

Lasha placed the last document on the table.

“The financial examination established that part of the funds went into a joint account at Alina’s apartment. In addition, your signature on the documents is false. The investigation begins today.”

Eric looked toward me.

“Mariam, are you doing this?”

For the first time I was not afraid of his gaze.

“No. You did it. I only stopped covering for you.”

That same day the court issued Eric a temporary restraining order. He could see the child only in the presence of a supervisor until the investigation was completed. Barbara gave me her lawyer free of charge, and paid for Chloe’s treatment from her own account.

“I am not writing this down as a debt to you,” she told me.

“Why are you helping me?”

Barbara looked toward the window.

“Because for years I justified my own son. Now I will no longer be able to. And because Chloe looks at me with the same sincere eyes with which Eric once looked at me, before he lost himself.”

Three days later, at the police station, Eric was made to listen to his first statement. I was not there, but Lasha told me that when the recording was turned on, he buried his head in his hands.

Hearing his own words turned out to be the heaviest punishment.

He could no longer say that he had been misunderstood.

Nor that he had enemies.

It was his voice. His laughter. His choice.

A week later Eric called me.

“Alina left me,” he told me.

I listened silently.

“My money has been frozen. At work they found out everything too. Mariam, please, withdraw the statement.”

“I cannot withdraw it.”

“I am your husband.”

“You are not anymore.”

“You still love me.”

Chloe’s little hat lay on the windowsill. The metal bell attached beneath the crescent moon shone in the ray of sunlight.

“I loved you once,” I told him. “But love does not mean that I will let you make me lose myself again.”

Six months later we moved into a new apartment. It was small, but in the morning the sun came into the kitchen. I started part-time remote work, and in the evenings I checked Chloe’s inhaler and attached her drawings to the refrigerator.

Chloe was already breathing better. The doctor said that she was responding well to the treatment.

One evening, when the first snow came outside, Chloe led me to the window.

“Mom, look, sheets are falling from the sky.”

“Look how beautiful it is.”

“Will we stay here?”

I took her little hand in mine.

“Yes. This is our home.”

That night I received the last message from Eric.

“It is Chloe’s birthday. I want to come for only five minutes. Maybe we could start everything over.”

I looked at the screen for a long time. Then I calmly wrote back:

“Only the people who do not consider her a burden will remain in Chloe’s life. You will be able to see her according to the court’s rules. We have nothing else to start.”

No answer came.

I put down the phone and entered Chloe’s room. She was sleeping, and in her hand she held a picture drawn with a pencil: two figures in the snow, with a large yellow moon above them.

I hung by her bed the little hat that had tinkled against my heart that night.

The bell no longer rang.

But I already knew that keeping silent could also be the sound of freedom.