Part 4 — Grandmother forbade me to walk near the abandoned house, but when she heard my explanation, the color drained from her face

After Elena’s words, such silence descended in the room that it seemed as if all the noise of the city had remained beyond the door.

“I’m calling the police,” I said.

“Not yet,” Elena shook her head. “Dato will deny everything. Until we have the documents, he will accuse us again.”

Matvei came over to me and squeezed my hand.

“Grandma, we have to return home.”

“Why?”

“Dad said the evidence is in the basement.”

When we returned to the village that evening, it was already dark. A black car stood at the end of the road. Its engine was off, but someone was sitting inside.

Lokhmaty immediately began to growl softly.

“Go inside the house,” I told Matvei.

“And you?”

“I’ll come in too. Just lock the door.”

For the first time he did not argue with me.

I stayed in the yard and took that small green whistle from my pocket. I blew three short sounds.

Lights came on in the neighbors’ windows.

Lidiya Stepanovna appeared by the fence.

“What is happening, Nina?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to be alone.”

She immediately called her brother, a former village district inspector. Ten minutes later four more neighbors arrived. When the man sitting in the black car saw this, he opened the door.

It was Dato. About fifty years old, well-groomed, with a calm face. The kind of face you would call a “good man” in childhood.

“Mrs. Nina,” he said to me with a smile, “why have you gathered so many people?”

“You tell me.”

“I simply came to take Pavel’s old things.”

“Pavel is in the hospital. Why did you come to his house at night?”

His smile disappeared.

“This is none of your business.”

“Now it is. You were watching my grandson.”

Dato took one step forward.

“Don’t frighten the boy. His father has been deceiving everyone for years.”

At that moment Matvei came out of the door. Lokhmaty stood beside him.

“Dad did not deceive me,” the boy said.

Dato stopped.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know that he sent me letters.”

Dato’s eyes shifted for a moment to the blue box clutched in his hands. That was enough.

The neighbor, the former inspector, raised his phone.

“The conversation has been recorded,” he said. “Now you will calmly wait for the police.”

Dato tried to escape, but two cars were already standing by the yard gate. The police arrested him on the spot. During the search, they found forged powers of attorney, seals, and bank receipts in his car.

But this was still not the worst part.

The next day we went to the hospital. Pavel lay pale, with a tube connected to his hand. When he saw Matvei, he began to cry.

“I thought Mom didn’t bring me because she didn’t love me,” Matvei said.

Pavel closed his eyes.

“I thought you no longer wanted to see me.”

They took each other’s hands.

I stood by the window and realized how many years someone else’s lie had taken away.

Yulia arrived that same evening. She came to the hospital directly from Poland. Her face was tired, and in her hand she held the old bag with which she had left home.

“Mom, why didn’t you call me?” she asked.

“Because first we had to see the truth.”

“You still didn’t trust me?”

“I trusted you. I simply no longer wanted you to live by someone else’s words.”

Yulia looked at Pavel.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

Pavel could not answer for a long time.

“I was afraid that I had already lost you.”

Yulia sat beside his bed and held his hand with both hands.

Dato’s trial took place several months later. The investigation confirmed that the debts taken in Pavel’s name had been falsified, while the transfers had been sent to accounts controlled by Dato. The house they had intended to sell remained in Matvei’s name.

Pavel slowly recovered. Yulia no longer wanted to return to Poland. She found a job in the small town and learned to spend her evenings with her father and son.

The most difficult part, however, was for Matvei.

One night, several weeks later, he came into my kitchen. I put warm milk on the table for him.

“Grandma, will Dad really stay now?”

“If he wants to stay, this time he must prove it himself.”

“Are you angry with him?”

The first snow was falling on the window.

“I was angry. Now I simply want everyone to carry their own truth and no longer place it on someone else’s back.”

Matvei rested his head on my shoulder.

“I won’t go to the abandoned house anymore.”

“I know.”

“But will Lokhmaty stay with us?”

“He already has a whole family.”

We built him a small wooden house in the corner of the old shed. After returning from school, Matvei first checked Lokhmaty’s wound, then did his homework. He was still a quiet child, but now his silence no longer resembled fear.

Three months later, Lokhmaty placed his injured leg fully on the ground for the first time. Matvei rejoiced as if he himself had won a victory.

“Look, Grandma! He isn’t limping anymore!”

“You taught him to walk.”

“No. He taught me to return.”

I could not answer those words.

At the beginning of spring, Dato’s lawyer asked to come to me. He told me that Dato was apologizing and wanted reconciliation with the family.

“He does not want my reconciliation; he wants to escape from the consequences of his own actions,” I said.

“Perhaps you should still listen to him.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because sometimes you should not open the door for someone who has already smashed every window in someone else’s life.”

That same evening I received a letter from Dato. Only one sentence was written: “You took everything from me.”

I threw the paper into the stove.

I had taken nothing.

I had simply stopped helping him leave someone else with nothing.

I entered Matvei’s room. A drawing hung on the wall: a house, a large dog, and four people holding hands with one another. In the corner of the drawing, a small green whistle was also drawn.

“Why did you draw this?” I asked.

“So that if someone gets lost, we can find them again.”

In the evening Lokhmaty lay in the yard. I turned his old collar in my hand. We had already replaced the rusted buckle, but I kept the small metal plate. Scratches from that night when the truth first revealed itself to us could still be seen on its surface.

Matvei called to me from the yard.

“Grandma, whistle!”

I brought the green whistle to my lips.

I blew one short sound.

Lokhmaty raised his head and ran toward me.

This time no one was lost.