Part 4 — They spent nine summers without me; when they found the farewell letter, my mother’s smile froze on her face

The next day, at seven in the morning, the phone began ringing continuously.

First the family lawyer called me.

“Mariana, please do not publish anything and do not answer anything.”

“I did not start anything.”

“I know. But your mother says that you are blackmailing the family.”

There was exhaustion in his voice. Not sympathy. Fear.

“Are you still going to protect her?”

He was silent for several seconds.

“Not today. I will not sign her letter anymore.”

Then my father called me.

“Your mother is losing her mind. She says you had that recording edited.”

“Do you believe her too?”

“No.”

He said this word to me for the first time without beginning to justify himself.

“Then tell her she will no longer receive an answer from me.”

“Mariana, she is ill.”

“And I was a child for nine years.”

I ended the call.

An hour later Aunt Linda sent me a voice recording. Mother was standing in her kitchen and thought she was alone in the room. In the recording, her own voice could be heard clearly:

“Mariana was always overly sensitive. If we took her once, then she would demand it every year. Ethan needed us. And she still had her aunt.”

Then my father asked:

“And what if one day she really leaves?”

Mother answered:

“Where would she go? She will come back anyway.”

The recording ended at this point.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time.

Hearing their words turned out to be more painful than not hearing them.

That evening they arranged a family meeting by video call. On the screen were Mother, Father, Ethan, and the lawyer.

“You understood everything incorrectly,” Mother said.

“No. I understood everything correctly. I simply believed your version for years.”

“Your brother needed our attention.”

Ethan immediately intervened.

“I never asked you to leave my sister alone.”

Mother looked at him.

“You were little.”

“That is exactly why you should have told the truth.”

My father raised his head.

“I should have checked what you were saying. I did not. Nothing can fix that.”

Mother wiped away her tears.

“We were a family.”

“A family should be the place where you do not have to prove your own existence,” I told her.

The lawyer looked over the documents placed on the table.

“Mariana, your mother wanted to send a statement claiming that you had access to the family’s money and had taken documents. But that is not true. I will no longer help her do this.”

Mother’s face changed.

“So you are taking their side against me?”

“No,” he said. “I am simply no longer taking the side of lies.”

That was the first moment when Mother lost control.

In the following weeks, the calls did not stop. Some uncles called me and said that I “should not bring family matters into public.” Not one of them asked why I had been alone for nine summers.

Ethan wrote to me every day.

At first he sent me only short messages.

“Today Mom said that you were exaggerating.”

“Today Dad told her to stop for the first time.”

“Today I read your notebook from the beginning again.”

One evening he came to my new city himself. I met him in the small apartment where boxes of books were still scattered across the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he told me.

“You did not lie to me.”

“But I did not ask you.”

These words struck me more strongly than any apology.

“I did not ask you either,” I answered. “We both thought there was no place for us with each other.”

Ethan took a folded photograph from his pocket. It showed the yard of our childhood home. I was standing at the edge of the frame, half cut off, holding a small toy train.

“I found this photograph in Mom’s box,” he said. “I always thought you had ended up in the frame by accident.”

I looked at the photograph for a long time.

“No,” I said. “I was always trying to get into the frame.”

Three weeks later Mother sent me a letter. It was more than ten pages long. On the first page there was an apology, and on the last page there was again a justification of herself.

“We had no other way out,” she wrote.

I did not answer.

Father then sent me a short letter.

“I know you are not asking to come back. I just want you to know that the door is open.”

This time I wrote a reply.

“If the door had been open, nine summers would not have passed outside it.”

Time passed.

I began working in the new city and drew houses in a small architectural team for people who created space for one another. Every morning I opened the window, made coffee, and spread my plans across the desk.

No one asked me why I was not in the photograph.

No one compared me to Ethan.

The first snow came in December. That evening I called Aunt Linda.

“For the first time I am happy that it is snowing,” I told her.

“Why?”

“Because now it is the snow that I chose.”

Several months later Ethan planned a small trip with me. Just the two of us went to a nearby lake. When we entered the hotel, we both took a photograph.

“This time I won’t cut you out of the frame,” he told me.

“This time I won’t stand in the corner either.”

We laughed.

This laughter did not resemble the old laughter. There was no guilt in it, nor hidden fear.

There were only two people who were finally looking at the same truth.

After we left, Mother called me once again. When her number appeared on the screen, I watched it for a while.

Then I answered.

“Mariana, come back home,” she told me. “We will start everything over.”

Snow was falling outside the window.

“Starting over is impossible, Mom. But I can move forward.”

“Do you really no longer need me?”

The question was old. The answer was new.

“I never needed you to be perfect. I only needed you not to abandon your child.”

Mother fell silent.

“Goodbye,” I told her.

“Mariana…”

I ended the call.

That night I put the yellow train ticket on my desk. Its edges were worn, the ink had almost faded, but the sentence written on the back in a child’s handwriting could still be read: “One day I will choose the path myself.”

I looked at the city lights from the window.

This time no one would tell me which path to take.

The train was already moving.