"I lived for twenty-seven years with the money of a woman who did not tell me the truth. I've already paid for it.
Victor laughed contemptuously.
You are very confident all of a sudden.
- No. I'm just tired of being afraid of people who only come when they have something to take.
He's gone.
Two weeks later, I received an official notification that Victor and his mother were considering challenging the injunction.
Maria Velcheva – the lawyer who recommended Georgi Markov – reviewed the documents.
"The order is in order," she said. "Mary was fully conscious. There is a notarization, a medical certificate and a clear will.
What if I get attacked in the media? Or do they start talking about cheating her?
We will respond with documents. But the most important thing is not to let them make you feel guilty about her choosing you.
That sentence shook me.
Because I felt guilty all the time.
Guilty of taking the envelopes.
Guilty of not insisting on the truth.
Guilty that Dimitar had secrets.
Guilty that Mary lived alone and gave of her.
But not everything that people put in your hands is yours for redemption.
Sometimes it's their decision.
Months later, Victor withdrew the objection.
He probably explained to him that there was no reason.
He probably realized that he had no way of proving that I had manipulated a woman who had documented every step in the bank for twenty-seven years.
Or maybe he just found easier prey.
I didn't care.
I made a decision.
I didn't buy a house on the sea.
I didn't go on a trip.
I opened a small fund in the name of Dimitar and Maria.
Not a big foundation with shiny events and photos.
Just a program to the school in the neighborhood, which helped children of single parents with textbooks, clothes and course fees.
Kaloyan was worried first.
Mom, are you sure? That money is for you.
Some of them are for me.
- And the rest?
– For people who sit at their kitchen table and look at an envelope because they do not know how they will pay for the heating.
Elitsa came with me to the first meeting with the headmaster of the school.
She had become a literature teacher. Sometimes we were still arguing. Sometimes she still looked at me like a mother who had to have all the answers.
But that day, he took my hand.
"Aunt Maria would have smiled," she said.
- I don't know.
- I know.
The first child we helped was a boy named Daniel.
He was in seventh grade. His father had died, his mother was working two shifts in a supermarket, and he was coming to school with shoes that were no longer fit for the winter.
When we gave him the new ones, he didn't immediately put them on.
He held the box and looked at the inscription on the side.
