He quietly opened the gate and immediately noticed something strange: the light in the house was on only in the kitchen, and in the backyard someone was shuffling their feet. The sound was faint, as if made by someone very old or very sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He approached the shed and lifted the latch. The door wasn\u2019t even locked \u2014 just held closed from the inside by an old bucket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inside, sitting on a pile of old blankets, was his mother. Bruises under her eyes, swollen fingers, a torn sweater. Next to her \u2014 a bowl with leftover porridge covered in mold. The smell of dampness and cold hit his nose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When his mother saw him, she flinched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Son\u2026 you were\u2026 supposed to arrive in three days\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Mom\u2026 why are you here? \u2014 his voice cracked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She lowered her eyes and whispered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Because it\u2019s better\u2026 for everyone\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when she tried to stand up, he saw deep marks from ropes on her wrists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then the soldier understood: his mother wasn\u2019t living in the shed. She was being put there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He burst into the house. His wife froze, holding a phone in her hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 O-oh, you\u2019re already home?.. \u2014 her voice trembled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Why is my mother in the shed? \u2014 every word cut through the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His wife stayed silent. She only turned pale, as if she had seen a ghost.
From her answer, the soldier was simply horrified\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At that moment the neighbor entered the house \u2014 the same one who often \u201ckept an eye on the house.\u201d Seeing the soldier, she tried to walk past him, but he blocked her way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 What is going on here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The neighbor exhaled:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Your wife said that your mother has dementia\u2026 that she is dangerous\u2026 that she could cut everyone\u2019s throats at night. She asked me to help\u2026 to keep an eye on her\u2026 to feed her\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The soldier felt the ground slipping from under his feet. But the most terrible thing was ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He noticed a thick folder of documents on the table. He opened it \u2014 and saw notarized powers of attorney for his house, for his bank account. All signed by his mother\u2026 but the signature was crooked, trembling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 She couldn\u2019t have signed this, \u2014 he said in an icy voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the wife finally spoke, breaking into a scream:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Of course she couldn\u2019t! But I needed to get the property while you\u2019re on duty! You were going to send her to a nursing home anyway! I just sped up the process! I wasn\u2019t going to kill her \u2014 I just needed her to sign everything over to me! And she DID!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She slammed her fist on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 And when everything was arranged \u2014 she suddenly wasn\u2019t needed anymore. That\u2019s it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The silence after these words was worse than a scream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The wife wasn\u2019t cruel. Not insane. Not jealous, not angry. She was greedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And for the sake of money she locked the old woman in the shed and waited for her to \u201cbreak down on her own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But she miscalculated one thing \u2014 soldiers sometimes return earlier than expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He quietly opened the gate and immediately noticed something strange: the light in the house was on only in the kitchen, and in the backyard someone was shuffling their feet. The sound was faint, as if made by someone very old or very sick. He approached the shed and lifted the latch. The door wasn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1718,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions\/1718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}