Part 4 — My Husband Transferred Half a Million to His Mother, but When I Opened the Folder of Documents, His Mother’s Smile Disappeared

Davit ended the conversation and slowly put the phone on the table.

None of us said another word.

In the bank’s underground room, only the monotonous sound of the fan could be heard. Grisha was looking at the wall without a window, while Angela Viktorovna clung to the bag as if she had to protect her life with the things left inside.

“Where is the second folder?” I asked.

Davit nodded.

“In the old warehouse. The accountant sent me the camera recordings, but the file is protected by a password.”

Grisha suddenly stood up.

“All this is illegal. I am going to the police.”

“Go,” I said calmly.

He turned toward me.

“Nastya, think. We lived together for six years.”

“That is precisely why it hurts.”

“I did not want it to turn out this way.”

“But you did it anyway.”

Angela Viktorovna raised her voice.

“This woman is destroying our family!”

“No,” I replied. “You built it on lies yourselves.”

That same day Davit handed the documents over to the police. Grisha tried to call everyone: the bank manager, the company accountant, the notary. Some did not answer the calls. Others directly told him that they would no longer speak with him without a lawyer.

In the evening, at the home where I was temporarily living with Marinka, Grisha called me once more.

“Just listen to me once.”

“I am listening.”

“My mother separated us, but I was not against you.”

“Then why was your voice recorded when you said that you would bring my hand there even by force?”

Silence fell on the other end of the line.

Davit had deliberately played the recording so that Grisha could hear his own voice. There he said that my share was “just a formality” and that I was an “emotional woman” who would sign in the end anyway.

For the first time Grisha heard his own words from the outside.

“I do not speak like that,” he whispered.

“You did speak like that. You simply always acted with me as if I did not notice it.”

The next day we went to the old warehouse. There was a smell of dust, water stains were visible on the ceiling, and a broken camera hung in the corner. Davit recovered the password from the accountant’s letter.

The recording showed Grisha and Angela Viktorovna. They entered the warehouse at night. Grisha was holding a brown folder. His mother-in-law was saying to him:

“Before Nastya realizes anything, we must sell the apartment.”

“What if she does not sign?”

“Then we will tell her that she owes us money and that we will lose in court.”

The recording stopped for several seconds, then Grisha looked toward the camera. His face was clearly visible.

That same evening both of them were arrested on charges of fraud and preparing forged documents. The bank blocked the half million. The sale of the apartment was stopped, while my share legally remained mine.

In court Grisha did not look at me for a long time. Angela Viktorovna, however, repeated until the last day that everything had happened because of my stubbornness.

I no longer answered.

Three months later I sold the apartment and moved into a small, sunny house on the outskirts of the city. I installed wooden shelves in the kitchen. On Sundays I tutored my neighbor’s daughter in mathematics and drank tea by the window in the evening.

When the first snow came, Marinka said to me:

“Do you know what changed the most?”

“What?”

“When you enter the house, you are no longer afraid of who you will find there.”

I smiled.

A small copper house-shaped keychain lay on the table. The number engraved on its back no longer frightened me. It was no longer a secret. It was the key to the life I had reclaimed with my own hands.

Four months later Grisha sent me a letter.

“Forgive me. Let us start everything again. Mother is sick, and I have been left alone.”

I read the letter several times. Then I folded it and put it in the trash bin.

Marinka looked at me.

“You will not write him a reply?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Sometimes refusal is the quietest answer.”

I went to the window. White snow was falling in the yard. The little girl I tutored had drawn a picture of my house: yellow windows, a red roof, and a door in front of which a woman stood alone.

“Is this you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she told me. “No one locks you inside the house anymore.”

I bent down and pressed the picture to my chest.

That night I put the copper keychain into the door lock. The key turned easily.

This time the door opened for me.