He stepped back, his eyes widening.
“Klara…
I remember everything, Dad. I saw it through his eyes. I heard it through his ears. I read the papers you signed. I saw the bank statements.
His face turned pale to greenish.
He… he poisoned you! These pills… you’ve brainwashed you!
“No,” I said calmly. “The pills gave me his memory.” And the safe gave me the evidence.
He began to look for words, his hands waving:
“You don’t understand!” I was young, scared! They were pushing us! You have no idea what kind of world she was moving in! You have no right to judge me!
“On the contrary. I’m the only person who has a point. I live with the consequences of your choice of twenty-two years.
I looked him in the eye, not as a daughter, but as a judge.
You have his money. You have your health. But from today on, you will live with one thought: you do not know when I will call the prosecutor’s office. Today, in a year, in ten… you don’t know when someone’s going to knock on your door.
“You won’t…” he whispered. “You’re my daughter…”
“To a woman you left to burn to save yourself,” I said softly. “There is your blood in me.” And his memory. Trust me, this is a combination you don’t want to argue with.
I let him stand alone between the graves, grayer and older than I had seen him in the hospital.
After that
Julian’s house is now mine. That’s what the will says.
In the evening, I walk past the bedside table, open the bottom drawer and look at the small glass bottle with the blue pills. There’s half left.
Sometimes my fingers flinch towards her.
A part of me wants to continue taking the pills – to keep alive his voice, his love for Catherine, even his anger.
Another part wants to pour them into the toilet and watch them dissolve.
So far I’m not doing either.
Because I realized something:
