Part 4 — My Daughter Cut the Cake and Burst into Tears, While the Baker Waved to Me Strangely at the Yard Gate

After the doctor’s last words, it seemed as if all the clocks in the yard stopped at the same time.

“Who gave him such permission?” I asked.

“He presented forged guardianship documents,” the doctor answered me. “But your daughter’s signature is not on the document. We are already checking the case.”

“Do we have time until six tomorrow morning?”

“No. You already have grounds for police intervention.”

I ended the call.

Spencer stood up.

“Nora, please. It is not as you think.”

“It is exactly as we heard.”

“I was only trying to find money.”

Chloe did not even look in his direction.

“Do you call selling my child finding money?”

Spencer quickly took out his phone.

“Mara, call me. Right now.”

No one answered.

He dialed a second number.

“Lawyer, I need you urgently.”

A man’s voice sounded in the phone.

“Spencer, I am no longer participating in this case.”

“What do you mean, no longer participating?”

“In the morning you told me that the documents had been obtained legally. Now I know that you signed false statements. Do not mention my name in this anymore.”

“You cannot abandon me!”

“I have already left you.”

The call ended.

Spencer slammed the phone onto the table. The plastic back cover came off and rolled into the green grass.

The baker called the police. While we waited for the patrol, Chloe was breathing weakly. Her hand was placed on her belly.

“Mom, how did I not realize?”

“You trusted a person who should have protected your trust. This is not your fault.”

“He was taking my child.”

“But he will not take her anymore.”

Spencer tried to approach again.

“Chloe, look at me. I love you.”

For the first time Chloe looked at him.

“Then why did you record that you would take money for my child?”

Spencer opened his mouth, but could not say a word.

The baker turned on the recording from the beginning and put the phone on the table. Now all the guests were listening to his voice.

“If it is a boy, Chloe will sign more easily…”

Spencer heard his own voice.

This was no longer an argument. These were his spoken words, which had returned and stood before him.

He covered his ears with his hands.

“Turn it off!”

“You said it,” Chloe told him.

“I know!”

“Then listen to the end.”

The recording continued.

“After birth, the child will go to another family. I will tell Chloe that it is a temporary medical necessity. I will receive half the money immediately.”

The blood disappeared from Chloe’s face. I went to her side, but she raised her head.

“No, Mom. Now I have to speak.”

The flashing light of the police car fell on the gate. Two officers entered the yard.

“Spencer Haley?” one of them asked.

“I have done nothing.”

“We have not asked you a question yet.”

Spencer looked toward me.

“Nora, tell them that this is a family matter.”

I saw the old Spencer in his eyes—the man who always forced someone else to apologize for his own guilt.

“It was a family matter until you planned to sell our granddaughter.”

The officer took out handcuffs.

That night Chloe stayed with me. After an examination at the hospital, the doctor said that the baby was fine. But for several hours she was afraid to fall asleep.

“If I fall asleep, they may take her from me again,” she told me quietly.

“No. I will be here.”

Spencer’s belongings were lying on the floor by the door of her room. Chloe put most of them into a bag. In the end only one item remained—a photograph in a small wooden frame, in which they were laughing on their wedding day.

Chloe looked at the photograph for a long time.

“I do not remember this man anymore.”

“Sometimes a person changes, or we simply finally see what he was like.”

She left the photograph on the shelf, turning the screen toward the wall.

The next day the police found Mara. She gave a statement and handed the investigators a complete copy of the audio recording. It became clear that Spencer had a large debt and had begun an agreement with a foreign family several weeks earlier.

Mara was his old acquaintance, who had taken part in this mediation for money. When she realized that Spencer intended to deceive Chloe and steal the child, she withdrew. She knew that going directly to Chloe would be dangerous, because Spencer constantly controlled her.

Therefore she approached the baker.

And it was the envelope hidden under the cake that saved us.

Three months later Chloe gave birth to a girl. When I saw the baby for the first time in the maternity room, her little fingers were searching for the air.

“Mom, look,” Chloe whispered. “She is here.”

“Yes, my dear. She is here.”

She named her daughter Elene. It was the name Chloe had loved since childhood and Spencer had never liked.

Spencer’s case was considered by the court. He confessed to the crime, because the recording, the documents, and the clinic cameras matched one another. I did not go to the courtroom to have him punished.

I went to stand beside Chloe.

When the judge announced the decision, Spencer lowered his head. Chloe squeezed my hand.

“It is strange,” she told me. “I thought peace would come when he was punished.”

“Peace comes when you no longer have to protect him.”

Several weeks later Chloe moved into a small apartment by the river. In the mornings she worked as an accountant, and in the evenings she bathed Elene. Children’s drawings were attached to the kitchen window.

In one drawing, three figures stood in front of a yellow house. Me, Chloe, and Elene.

“Where is Spencer?” I asked once.

Elene turned the pencil in her hand.

“He does not live here.”

“Why?”

“Because he has no place with us.”

Chloe looked at me. On her face I saw for the first time a smile that was not accompanied by fear.

Six months later the first snow came. Elene stood by the window and drew small circles on the glass with her fingers. Chloe was stirring soup in the kitchen.

That evening Spencer wrote to me.

“I want to see my daughter just once. Now I understand everything. I have changed.”

Chloe read the message and put the phone on the table.

“What will you answer?”

I did not answer for her. This was already her life.

Chloe thought for several minutes. Then she wrote only one sentence.

“Elene’s safety and peace are first for me. I am not going to let you return to your life.”

She pressed the send button.

Spencer called again.

Chloe did not answer the call.

On the windowsill lay the small copper star that the baker found under the cake board. Mara had apparently cut it from the bakery packaging and attached it to the envelope, so that Chloe would know that this message had not appeared by chance.

Elene was now touching that star with her fingers.

“Grandmother, did it fall from the sky?”

“No, my little one. Someone left it in the darkness so that we could find the way.”

Elene smiled and hugged the star to her chest.

Outside, snow was falling silently. And inside the house, for the first time, no one was afraid to open the door.

The little star was still shining.