Part 4 — I was breastfeeding my child on the plane when the woman sitting next to me humiliated me — but my daughter’s screen stopped her in her tracks.

Part 4

At eight in the morning, I stood dressed in the kitchen.

Outside, the rain beat against the asphalt as if someone were incessantly pounding on the door. Niko was asleep in my mother’s room, while Luiza sat by the window, clutching Davit’s old tablet with both hands.

— “You’re not going alone,” she told me.

— “I won’t go alone.”

Marine placed a cup of hot tea on the table. Her hands were trembling.

— “Let’s call the police.”

— “The message could be a trap.”

— “And you’re still going?”

— “If I don’t go, that person might go silent forever.”

Just then, the phone rang.

It was Elene’s lawyer.

— “Mrs. Ana, my client is ready to make a deal,” he said.

— “Yesterday your client claimed the recording was a forgery.”

— “The situation has changed.”

— “What amount are you offering?”

— “Enough for you to drop all of this.”

— “And in exchange?”

— “You sign a document stating you have no further claims against the company.”

I looked out the window. Raindrops merged across the glass.

— “Tell your client that Davit’s life is not a commodity for sale.”

— “Ma’am, think carefully. You are alone with two young children.”

— “That is precisely why I am thinking.”

I hung up the call.

A few minutes before nine o’clock, Irakli—the police officer who had met us at the airport—arrived at my mother’s house. He was accompanied by a young woman named Nata, a digital forensics specialist.

— “We verified the text message too,” Irakli said. “We will accompany you to the old station. But whoever contacted you might be in danger.”

At the old station, only the sound of rain beating against the iron roof could be heard. Grass had sprouted between the tracks on the abandoned platform. At seven minutes past nine, a man carrying a black umbrella emerged.

It was Sandro, Davit’s co-worker.

He held a small wooden box in his hands.

— “I thought you wouldn’t come,” he told me.

— “What’s in the box?”

— “What Davit left with me the night before he died.”

Nata immediately recorded his statement. Sandro opened the box to reveal a small memory card and a folded sheet of paper.

I recognized Davit’s handwriting on the paper.

“If anything happens to me, Ana needs to see both recordings. The first one only shows who threatened me. The second shows why.”

My knees buckled.

Nata inserted the card into a specialized device. The video displayed Davit’s workspace, stamped with a time of eleven at night. Davit stood before the camera, his face looking exhausted.

— “The safety system was intentionally shut down,” he was saying. “Elene issued the order because repairs were too expensive for the company. Tomorrow I am handing this over to the investigator.”

Then Elene appeared in the doorway on screen.

— “Do you really think you can threaten me with your family and survive?” Davit asked her.

— “I am not threatening you. I am warning you.”

— “The camera is recording.”

Elene looked behind her. For the first time, I saw genuine panic on her face.

In the video, everything happened rapidly after that. Elene shoved Davit. He hit a metal staircase and collapsed. The woman stood over him for a few seconds, then pulled out her phone and made a call.

— “He fell. Now do everything just as we agreed.”

The video stopped.

I couldn’t make a sound.

— “This is murder,” Irakli stated.

Sandro lowered his head.

— “I retrieved this from the camera. Elene told me that if I kept the recording, she would have my child pulled from school. That was why I couldn’t protect Davit before he died.”

Elene and the company director were arrested that very day. It was later revealed that the safety system failure had been concealed for months, and two other workers could have died. In court, Elene’s lawyer refused to go through with their agreement.

— “After this material, your client has no defense left,” he told her. “I cannot take a case against the truth.”

A few weeks later, we entered the courtroom. Elene sat directly opposite me. For the first time, I heard about my husband’s death with my own ears.

The prosecutor played the audio recording.

“I’ll make your family lose everything.”

It was Elene’s own voice.

She raised her head as if the voice belonged to someone else. Everyone in the room was staring at her.

— “I didn’t say that,” she whispered.

Yet the recording continued.

“He fell. Now do everything just as we agreed.”

Elene gripped her chair tightly.

That was the first time she saw her own words as I saw them: not as a threat to someone else, but as a conviction for herself.

The court ordered the company to pay restitution to the families, and Elene was found guilty of the crime. The director confessed that he had issued the order himself. Sandro testified, and his child was protected.

I felt no sense of victory.

Only exhaustion.

When I organized Davit’s belongings back home, I saw the empty chair in his study. A single photograph remained on the desk—Luiza sitting on his shoulders while I was still carrying Niko. Touching the corner of the photo was that tiny silver moon sticker Davit had placed on his tablet.

I picked up the photograph, but couldn’t bring myself to look at it for long.

Three months later, I began working at a small library in my mother’s town. In the morning I walked the children to school, in the afternoon I shelved books, and in the evening I strolled along the riverbank pushing Niko’s stroller.

Luiza took up drawing. One day she handed me a picture depicting four people: her, me, Niko, and a large white moon in the sky.

— “Where is Dad?” I asked her.

— “Where we remember him,” she answered. “But you don’t have to cry every time anymore.”

— “I’ll try.”

— “No, Mom. Just live.”

It was the hardest and kindest command I had ever received.

The season’s first snow arrived at the end of December. From the library window, I watched the street get covered in white. Niko was already standing on his own, while Luiza drew a small moon on her school bag.

That evening, a letter arrived from Elene:

“Ana, I understand everything now. I know I am not asking for forgiveness. I only want to see the children once and explain that I didn’t want it to end like this.”

I read the letter twice.

Then I wrote back a reply:

“The children no longer need your explanations. They need peace. I hope that one day you will at least speak the truth to yourself.”

I didn’t send the letter without my lawyer; he delivered it officially.

Elene called one last time.

— “Just five minutes,” she pleaded. “Nothing more.”

— “No.”

— “You will still think about me constantly anyway.”

— “No, Elene. I no longer need to think about you.”

— “How can you be so calm?”

I stood by the window as snow continued to fall.

— “Because I am no longer carrying your consequences.”

I hung up the call.

That night, Luiza handed the tablet back to me. The screen was wiped clean, but the silver moon sticker was still half-peeled away.

— “Won’t we need this anymore?” she asked me.

— “Perhaps we will. But not the way we used to.”

I set the tablet on the shelf right next to Davit’s photograph. Then I pressed the small edge of the moon sticker back down with my finger so it wouldn’t fall off.

Niko called for me from the room. Luiza ran toward him laughing. I followed behind them, and for the first time in a long while, the silence in the house didn’t scare me anymore.

Moonlight fell across the window.

And this time, it was no longer a sign of the past.

It was the way forward.