Part 4 — They turned my parents into guests in their own home, but when my brother learned I had returned, the color drained from his face

The bank call had not ended when Andria picked up the phone from the floor.

“This is impossible,” he said.

Inna held out her hand.

“Give me the phone.”

“I am not obligated to show you anything.”

“You already are. Your voice is on the recording, and your account is in the statements.”

Andria looked toward me. The same old confidence still stood in his eyes, but for the first time I noticed a crack.

“Did you call the investigator?”

“I only searched for the truth.”

“You are my brother.”

“That is exactly why I was waiting for you to stop yourself.”

Natალია hurriedly dialed another number.

“Call the lawyer,” she told Andria.

Andria called him. In a few seconds he switched the phone to speaker mode.

“Do everything so that this recording disappears,” he told him.

There was tiredness in the lawyer’s voice.

“I will no longer continue the case.”

“What do you mean, you will not continue?”

“It means that yesterday you told me the parents were voluntarily transferring the house. Now I see a forged power of attorney, financial transfers, and a recording of pressure. My advice is to say nothing more.”

“I pay you!”

“Not from today onward.”

The call ended.

Andria seemed to hear his own words from outside for the first time. Inna played the recording again.

“Because this house belongs to us. You will stay here only until you are needed.”

His own voice sounded in the shed.

Andria froze.

He slowly turned his head and looked at himself, as if he were listening to the confession of a stranger.

“I did not say it like that,” he whispered.

“You said exactly that,” my mother answered.

There was no fear in her voice anymore. Only exhaustion.

The investigator did not handcuff Andria that morning. He and Natალია could no longer enter the house. By a temporary court order, both were forbidden to approach the parents and access the accounts.

But this turned out to be only the beginning.

Documents received from the bank established that during the last eight months Andria’s company had transferred almost all of the savings from the parents’ accounts. My transfers disappeared on the same day they were credited to the account. Natალია’s expensive things had been bought with their money. The document for transferring the house was supposed to be only the last step.

My father stood for a long time at the door of the shed.

“Why did you not tell me earlier?” I asked.

“Because I was afraid your brother would be put in prison.”

“And he was not afraid to leave us in the street.”

My father lowered his eyes.

“Parents sometimes protect the longest the child who no longer protects them.”

That same week Andria called me several times.

The first time he was angry.

“You should not destroy a family because of one house.”

The second time he cried.

“Natალია controlled me badly. I was just trying to put everything in order.”

The third time he said nothing anymore. Only breathing could be heard.

I did not answer any of the calls.

I heard his voice once more at the police station, when the investigator transferred the recording into an official statement. There were white walls in the room, and a metal cup stood on the table. Andria sat there and listened to his own words.

“If you do not sign, we will tell Levan that you spent everything.”

His face changed.

“Natალია came up with this,” he said.

“But you repeated it,” the investigator answered.

For the first time Andria could say nothing.

Several days later the court confirmed the freezing of the property. The investigation continued. Natალია shifted all responsibility onto Andria, and Andria onto her. Both tried to save themselves, but I no longer wanted to take their salvation upon myself.

The house was returned to my parents.

On the first night they emptied the shed. They carried the two narrow beds outside. The iron mark of the bed remained on the wall, while two bright strips of dust could be seen on the floor. My mother brought her sewing machine back there. My father placed a small workbench.

The things in their house seemed to regain their breath.

Those old scratches were still on the kitchen table. I followed one of them with my finger.

“I made this when I was five years old,” I said.

My father smiled.

“I know. You blamed your toy car instead of the wood.”

My mother poured tea for us.

“Now we no longer ask anyone for permission to eat at home.”

Several weeks later I changed my job and rented a small apartment in my parents’ city. I no longer sent money out of fear that someone would take it. Every week I went to them, we bought groceries together, and sometimes I helped my father in his workshop.

One evening, when the first snow came, my mother put a small drawing on the table. My six-year-old niece, Marita, was drawing a house there. The house had large windows, and three people stood in front of it.

“Why did you not draw the fourth?” I asked.

Marita shrugged.

“Uncle Andria no longer lives outside. Grandma says that only good people should come into the house.”

My mother fell silent. I slowly folded the paper.

“Good people can also make bad choices,” I told the child. “But a choice is always followed by a consequence.”

Months later Andria sent me his last letter. He wrote that he wanted an agreement from the court, that Natალია had betrayed him, that in childhood I had been the most important person to him.

At the end it said: “Come and talk to me at least once.”

I held the letter in my hands for a long time. I was no longer angry. I simply realized that I no longer needed to carry his crime.

In response I sent only one sentence:

“I will begin talking when you stop calling what you did a mistake.”

After that he did not write again.

One morning my father brought me a small wooden box from his workshop. Our family initials could still be seen on the lid. Inside lay my mother’s blue thimble cushion, and now I had also returned the rusty key beside it.

“You keep this,” my father told me.

“No. This should remain in the house.”

“Why?”

I went into the garden. I made a small, dry place for the key under the old stone, but this time I did not cover the stone completely. Its top shone in the sun.

“Because hidden things frighten people,” I told him. “But seen truth opens a door.”

My mother called to me from the window that the tea was ready.

I entered the house. Four plates stood on the kitchen table. One for me, two for my parents, and one for Marita, who was adding new windows to the house with pencils.

Outside, the first snow was slowly covering the yard.

The rusty key remained on top of the stone.

This time no one was looking for it anymore.