Part 4 — My Mother Emptied My Room and Threw Me Out of the House, but the Smile Disappeared from Her Face When She Saw the Document

At the moment when my voice sounded in the audio, my mother tried to snatch the phone.

I stepped back.

“Don’t touch it.”

“This was obtained illegally!” she shouted.

My old voice could be heard from the phone.

“Mom, if you sell the house, at least tell me. I will pay for everything, just don’t take Mia’s education away from her.”

Then my mother’s voice sounded.

“You will lose nothing, Lauren. The house is mine, and you will always have a place here.”

Mia slowly stood up.

“When was this recorded?”

“Two weeks ago,” I answered. “The day I transferred the money to you.”

My mother shook her head.

“I did not say that.”

The audio repeated her words again.

“Lauren will believe everything. I will wait a little longer and sell the house too.”

A fear appeared on my mother’s face such as I had never seen in childhood.

Mia walked toward the door.

“Mom, were you really planning to sell this house?”

“I was doing this for you!”

“For me?”

“For your education, for your future!”

“And where were you leaving Lauren?”

My mother could not find an answer.

The phone rang again. This time it was my lawyer.

“Lauren, we have officially filed the statement,” he told me. “Your mother is being given a deadline to leave the house. Also, she will have to return the money to the loan buyer.”

My mother clasped her hands over her head.

“No. No, you cannot do this.”

“I did not do anything,” I told her. “You yourself told me to leave.”

“I am your mother!”

“And I was your daughter until you needed money.”

At these words Mia began to cry.

For the first time I saw that her tears were not coming only from fear. She was also blaming herself.

“Lauren, I didn’t know,” she said.

“You know what happened.”

“Mom told me that you wanted to leave on your own.”

“And why were your things arranged in my room?”

Mia fell silent.

That same evening my mother called several people. First she called my workplace and said that I was psychologically unstable. Then she contacted the bank and demanded that the transfers from my accounts be canceled. Finally she called the lawyer.

But the lawyer refused her.

“Mrs. Parker, I can no longer represent you,” he said. “The conflict of interest and the signed false statement have already been confirmed.”

My mother ended the call and stopped in the middle of the kitchen.

“You are all against me.”

“No, Mom,” I said. “It is just that for the first time nobody is protecting you from the consequences of your decisions.”

The next morning law-enforcement officers came to the house. They needed neither shouting nor the use of force. They had the lawyer’s order, and evidence of the attempt to sell the property lay before my mother.

The man unfolded the document.

“Mrs. Parker, please sign the handover report.”

My mother looked at the paper.

“Lauren, tell them that I have the right to stay.”

I looked at her.

“You have the right to stay temporarily if I sign that in writing. But living together with me will no longer be possible.”

“This is my house.”

“No. This is my grandfather’s house. And I will no longer allow anyone here to feel as if they are in prison.”

Mia came over to me.

“I will leave,” she said. “Together with Mom.”

“You can stay if you take responsibility for yourself.”

She lowered her head.

“Are you still helping me?”

“No. This time I am giving you the right to choose.”

Three days later my mother left the house. Her room was left almost empty. On the top shelf of the wardrobe lay only one photograph: my grandfather, me, and little Mia in the garden. On the back of the photograph my grandfather had written by hand: “Family is the one who does not force your heart.”

I looked at the photograph for a long time.

Then I took the hospital badge that had been hanging from the handle of the black garbage bag and that I had carried with me the whole way. The plastic corner was stained with coffee.

I did not throw it away anymore.

Four weeks later the court officially confirmed my ownership of the house. My mother was ordered to return the loan money, and a separate investigation began because of the false statement. Mia no longer attended college. In the evenings she worked in a small café and saved money for her own education.

And I moved from the hospital dormitory into a small apartment.

A tram line could be seen from the window. In the morning there was the smell of fresh coffee in the kitchen, but for the first time I was no longer afraid that someone would splash this cup in my face.

On Sundays Mia came over. At first she sat awkwardly, but then she slowly began to talk.

One evening she brought me a small drawing. A house was drawn on the sheet, and beside it stood two women. There was a door between them, but it was not locked.

“Is this us?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “This time we can both open the door.”

Months later, on a snowy morning, my mother wrote to me for the first time.

“Forgive me. If possible, I want to come home. Everything will no longer be the same.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Earlier I would have missed work over such a message, started the car, and gone to save her.

Now I wrote only one sentence:

“You can forgive me, but you can no longer return to my life.”

I wrote nothing else.

I opened the window. Snow was quietly falling on the yard. On the table lay my grandfather’s photograph, and beside it the old hospital badge, with the brown stain left from the handle of the black bag.

I ran my hand over the small plastic card and understood for the first time that every sacrifice made for the family had not been love.

Sometimes it was only fear that if you stopped saving everyone, nobody would need you anymore.

I was no longer afraid.

For the first time, the door of the house was closing for me.