Part 4 — At my daughter’s funeral I heard her voice from the coffin, and when her former husband came in, the color drained from his face

After Dato’s words, silence descended in the hospital corridor. Beyond the window, the evening rain fell in thin strips, while the red lights of ambulances flickered on the floor.

“Do you have an address?” I asked.

“The last signal was recorded near the railway station,” Dato told me. “But before we could get there, the lawyer tried to stop Andrei’s detention.”

Andrei’s lawyer stepped provocatively into the corridor.

“My client was in shock. He had no intention.”

“Tying a child in a coffin does not happen accidentally,” I answered.

“You are emotionally involved.”

“I am a doctor. And a mother.”

He closed the folder.

“The defense claims that the room was for medical observation.”

Dato turned on the camera recording.

Andrei’s face appeared on the screen. He stood directly in front of the camera and said to Sofia:

“If you tell your mother that I am keeping you here, you will never see her again. I will tell everyone that you are losing your mind.”

His own voice sounded in the room.

Andrei froze first.

Then he approached the screen.

“Turn it off.”

“You said it yourself,” Natalia said quietly.

Andrei looked at her.

“Be quiet.”

“No,” Natalia answered. “I have already been silent enough.”

This was the first moment when he heard his own words through someone else’s ears. The anger slowly dissolved from his face, and something heavier took its place: the realization that no one could erase the words he had spoken anymore.

The lawyer looked at his phone.

“I am no longer staying in this case,” he said.

“What does that mean?” Andrei shouted.

“It means I will no longer defend my client against what the camera has already said.”

The police took Andrei, Natalia, and Klavdia away separately. On the way, Klavdia kept repeating that she had only wanted to help her son.

But her hands were trembling.

When I entered the hospital room, Sofia’s eyes were open. She had a small plaster on her hand and a thin blanket wrapped around her.

“Mom, won’t we go back home?” she asked.

“Not to that house.”

“Will Daddy go to prison?”

I sat down beside her.

“Whatever he does will have consequences for his choices. You are not responsible for this.”

Sofia nodded, but her fingers were still holding the purple ribbon that had been tied to the little key.

That same night Dato called me.

“We found the man who prepared the false certificate. But Andrei has another problem.”

“What?”

“He did not transfer the money only to empty his own account. The second transfer was made in your name.”

“In my name?”

“The money went to an account connected with your former military service. Now Andrei claims that you were a participant in the entire plan.”

Then I understood what he was trying to do. If his crime resembled mine, the truth would become blurred for everyone.

But Dato told me one more thing.

“There is one sentence in the transfer description. Andrei wrote it himself.”

“What sentence?”

Dato was silent for several seconds.

“‘Valeria will take everything if the girl stops talking.’”

That night I could not sleep. I listened to Sofia’s breathing in the hospital corridor, and for the first time in two days I knew that she was beside me.

In the morning, the court ordered pretrial detention for Andrei, Natalia, and Klavdia. The false doctor was arrested at the station. His bag contained Sofia’s medical records, bank documents, and another small key.

The trial lasted a long time.

All the recordings were shown.

All the transfers were deciphered.

Sofia’s testimony was recorded in a specially arranged room so that she would not have to stand beside Andrei.

When the judge announced the final decision, there was neither joy nor revenge in my eyes.

Only exhaustion.

Andrei was sentenced to a long prison term. Natalia confessed to the crime and received her sentence. At the end Klavdia said that she had been afraid of her son, but the court explained: fear is not an excuse for a choice.

Andrei’s house was confiscated. His account was frozen, while Sofia’s money was returned to a protected fund under court supervision.

The most difficult day was still the day when we returned to take our belongings from the house.

In the dark room, the little bed stood empty. On the wall hung Sofia’s drawing: three large shadows and a small yellow door among them.

I took the drawing down.

In the desk drawer I found a purple ribbon. Its end was sunk in dust, but its color still looked alive.

Sofia saw the door and took my hand.

“Will this room never open again?”

“No,” I told her. “Now we will decide which door we open.”

Three months later we moved to a seaside city. I began working at a small clinic where night shifts were scheduled in advance and I always returned home in the evening.

Sofia started school.

During the first week she drew only windows and open doors. Then she drew the sun, with a small purple ribbon hanging in the left corner.

One morning, when the first snow began outside, she looked at me in the kitchen.

“Mom, if I fall asleep now, will you wake me?”

I knelt beside her.

“Always.”

“And if the door is locked?”

“The key will be with us.”

Several weeks later I received a letter from Andrei. It bore the prison stamp. He wrote that he regretted it, that he wanted only one conversation, that he wanted to remain a father to Sofia.

By then I had understood how many times I had tried to save him from his consequences: in court, with relatives, with neighbors, and even with myself.

I did not open the letter. I did not show it to Sofia. I simply gave it to the lawyer.

Andrei called me the next day.

“Valeria, please listen to me for one minute.”

“I’m listening.”

“Tell Sofia that her father loves her.”

“Love should not lock a door from the outside.”

The line went dead.

I went to the window. Snow was slowly falling onto the roofs of the city.

Sofia sat on the floor and was making a new drawing with colored pencils. Beside her lay the purple ribbon. It was no longer tied to the little key, but I still kept both together—as proof that that day I left in the coffin not only my daughter, but also my old fear.

Sofia held the drawing out to me.

“This is our house,” she told me. “All the doors are open.”

I smiled and tied the ribbon to the window handle. The wind coming in from outside slowly fluttered it.

And the key remained in my hand.

This time, I held the door.