I held the knife in my hands for a long time without moving. In my mind surfaced the police report about the death of my only son. “Fall down the stairs.” “Hit his head.” “No signs of a struggle.”

Back then, it seemed strange to me that there were cuts on his palms — as if he had tried to grab onto something. They explained it to me: “He caught himself on the railing.” I believed it. Now everything fell into place.

The knife was wrapped in a thin baby cloth cut from the same blanket. Someone had carefully hidden it inside and sewn it back up, knowing that I would never cut open something I had knitted for my granddaughter. Someone counted on the fact that one day it would simply be thrown away — along with the secret.

I remembered that evening. The argument. The neighbors had heard shouting. My daughter-in-law said my son was drunk, stumbled, fell. But my son didn’t drink. And the staircase in the house was too short for such a quick death.

I slowly sat down on the edge of the bed. My hands were shaking. The knife was not the murder weapon directly. It was a threat. Or an attempt to defend himself.

Now I understood why she threw the blanket away so abruptly. She wasn’t getting rid of an old thing. She was getting rid of the last piece of evidence.

I carefully put the knife aside. Not back into the blanket. Into a bag. Because now I knew: my son did not fall. Someone helped him.