- I'm in the center.
- I'm coming.
Twenty minutes later, he was there for me.
He wasn't a boy anymore.
But when he sat next to me and saw the folder in my hands, his face changed.
- What happened?
I handed him the letter.
He read everything.
You didn't interrupt me.
When I get to the end, I'm standing still for a long time.
Then he covered his face with his hands.
"I thought Dad had just crashed," he said.
- And me.
And Aunt Maria knew?
- She knew something. But not everything.
And she gave us money because she felt guilty?
- Yes.
He looked at the file.
And that money?
She left them to me.
"What are you going to do?"
That was the question everyone would ask me.
And who I didn't know how to answer myself.
I was sixty-nine years old.
My apartment was paid off.
The children had their own families.
I had a granddaughter who wanted to study architecture, and a grandson who was constantly talking about computers.
I could have helped them.
I could have bought a small home by the sea.
I could travel.
I could do anything I had never allowed myself.
But when I closed my eyes, I saw Maria at my kitchen table.
With a white envelope in hand.
With a look that doesn't want to meet mine.
She didn't want that money to be another burden.
He wanted them to be the end of the burden.
"I'll give myself time first," I said.
Kaloyan nodded.
- That's reasonable.
The next day, Victor came to my house.
He didn't call.
He was waiting for me at the entrance.
She was wearing a suit and expensive coat, like she was going on a business date, not a woman who had just buried her best friend.
"You were at the bank," he said.
You have very good sources.
- Don't make fun of me.
- I'm not making fun of you. I just don't have anything to talk to you about.
- You have. My aunt left money. It's family funds.
- They're not.
"How do you know?"
From the documents.
You have no right to hide them.
- I'm not hiding anything. The bank will settle everything legally.
He came closer.
Look, Mrs. Stoyanova. I don't know what my aunt told you, but she hasn't been well in the last few years. There were obsessions. He was talking about debts, about some husband of yours, about guilt. Maybe she was manipulated.
- From whom?
- From you.
That was the moment when I felt not anger, but clarity.
Victor didn't care about Maria.
He didn't care what she went through.
He didn't care why she worked until the last and why she didn't have a family.
He was only interested in the amount.
"You didn't visit her," I said. "You didn't take her to the doctor." You didn't bring her food. You didn't sit with her at Christmas. But now you know what “family” is because you’ve heard at the expense.
You don’t know anything about our relationship.
- I know enough. Please, get out of my entrance.
We will dispute everything.
- That's your right.
- It'll be expensive.
