Part 4 — My Husband Left Me at Home for the Most Important Contract, but One Question from My Father in the Hall Took His Smile Away

“Where is this file?” I asked.

“The file is gone. But a copy remained in our backup system.”

Everyone in the hall could still hear our conversation. Diego stood motionless, as if in the last few minutes his body had remained here while his mind had disappeared somewhere.

“Do not contact anyone,” he told me quietly. “We can settle this at home.”

“We have nothing left to settle at home.”

Renata raised her head.

“Diego, you told me that Valeria had signed all the documents.”

“Now be quiet!”

“No. Now you will be quiet.”

I had not said this. Renata had.

The lawyer stepped aside and made several calls on the phone. He returned in one minute.

“Mr. Salcedo, our representation is over. From now on, only the investigative group will communicate with you.”

Diego grabbed him by the arm.

“You are my defender!”

“I was, while I thought my client had been misled. Now I see that you yourself directed everything.”

The lawyer freed his arm.

This was the first door that closed before Diego.

The next day we went to the compliance department. In the small room there was one round table, and a clock on the wall ticked loudly every second. The audio that my father had not managed to play to the end in the hall was waiting for us there.

Diego’s voice sounded more clearly.

“Valeria is only a signature. Her surname is money. As soon as the project is completed, I will get rid of both of them.”

Then his laughter.

I was listening to my own husband’s words through someone else’s voice, as if his life were in some film. But the most painful thing was that my voice could also be heard in the recording.

“Diego, why did this transfer go through?”

“Do not ask me about finances, Valeria. You will not understand this.”

“But my signature is on the document.”

“Because my wife must trust her husband.”

The recording ended.

Diego looked at the floor. For the first time he saw his own words from the outside.

“I was angry,” he said.

“No,” I answered calmly. “You were certain that no one would find out.”

Three days later, the court confirmed the restriction of his accounts and the seizure of the company documents. No one celebrated. My father did not smile either. I simply stood in the corridor and watched the rain through the window.

An investigation also began against Renata. She confessed everything, but for Diego that no longer changed anything. Part of the stolen funds was returned. The court distributed responsibility for the rest.

And I canceled the joint marriage accounts with my signature.

When I returned home, I found the wardrobes almost empty. Diego had taken his things. In the corner of the bedroom only one thing had remained—the small wooden box where I had kept the copper compass given to me three years earlier.

I opened it.

The compass needle no longer moved. Perhaps the mechanism had been damaged. Or perhaps all this time I had been waiting for it to find the direction instead of me.

Under the box lay a photograph from our wedding. There was such warmth on Diego’s face that day that remembering it now felt almost like seeing a completely unfamiliar person.

I did not tear up the photograph.

I did not burn it either.

I simply put it in a drawer.

Six weeks later I became the project manager at my father’s company. Of the same project that was once supposed to become a way to save Diego. Every morning at eight o’clock I went to the new office, stood by the window, and listened to the employees without anyone asking me whose wife I was.

“Today we have to discuss the plan for the northern railway section,” Luka told me one morning.

“We will discuss it,” I answered. “But this time let us read every signature ourselves.”

He smiled at me.

“This is your rule now.”

“No. It is simply a normal rule.”

Winter came. On the first snowy day, my father came to my home. We drank tea in the kitchen, while the drawings for my new project lay on the windowsill.

“Are you still thinking about him?” he asked.

I was silent for a while.

“Sometimes I think not about that man, but about the woman who did everything to protect him.”

“And what would you tell her?”

“That she had her own direction. She was simply looking at someone else’s compass.”

My father placed his hand on mine.

“You were never a woman left at home, Valeria.”

This time I did not object.

Diego contacted me for the first time after five months. The message was short.

“I want to talk to you. We can start everything over.”

I looked at the screen for a long time. Earlier, with a message like this, I would think all day about what it meant, how I would answer, and how I would protect his pride.

Now I knew only one thing.

“Starting over is impossible when you are still running from the old truth. I wish you to find peace with your own decisions.”

After sending it, I put down the phone and opened the window. Cold air entered. Children were running in the snow in the street, somewhere the smell of burning wood came from a neighbor’s yard, and my new contract lay on the table.

That evening I opened the small wooden box again. I took the copper compass in my hand and placed it on the windowsill.

The needle was still stopped.

But this time it no longer bothered me.

I already knew where I was going.

And for the first time, the direction was mine.