Chapter 16: Legacy

Dawn painted Klaipėda's sky in a trace of pink and gold as Alex drove toward the hospital, his mind racing with overwhelming thoughts: It's finally happening! The empty car seat behind him would soon cradle a new life—a thought that both thrilled and terrified him. Beside him, Anatig's measured breathing filled the silence, each inhale and exhale felt like a countdown to their unknown future. 

Time warped within the hospital's sterile walls and minutes stretched into hours as Anatig's labor intensified, her pain echoing through the delivery ward. Alex pressed his forehead against the cold corridor wall, a spectator in his own life-changing moment. His hands trembled as unwanted memories surfaced of him at ten years old, hiding his swollen face and bruised neck, all the while manufacturing lies to protect his stepfather from suspicious school nurses. Now, listening to Anatig's muffled cries, that same helplessness crashed over him, bringing intense unexplainable emotions.

“Please,” he whispered to no one in particular, “Let me be better than him.” The sixth hour brought crisis. Anatig struggled with complications, as the baby was big and poorly positioned. Medical staff moved with practiced urgency, their quiet commands carrying an edge that made Alex's heart race. When a nurse finally guided him into the delivery room, the world seemed to tilt on its axis. The scene that greeted him was raw and primal. The harsh fluorescent lights and antiseptic smell made everything painfully clear—Anatig lay exhausted and unrecognizable against bloodstained sheets while the medical team worked with focused intensity. While the doctor held it still, Alex saw a small, writhing body that he could barely believe was his child.

"Would you like to cut the cord?" The doctor asked, rousing him from his daze.  The scissors felt foreign in Alex's wobbling hands. His vision tunneled, the room's edges blurring as he stared at the umbilical cord—this final physical connection between mother and child. His son's head looked strange, elongated and fear gripped him.

"What's wrong with his head?" the words tumbled out before he could stop them. "Everything is perfect," the doctor assured, guiding his hands. "Just cut here." The cut from the scissors resounded in Alex's ears. In that moment, as his son's first cry pierced the air, Alex's world shifted irreversibly. Vilhelm—they had chosen the name just weeks before his arrival—was placed in Anatig's arms, his tiny fists waving in protest at the bright new world. Alex stood frozen, watching his wife and son together. Anatig’s face, slick with sweat and streaked with tears, contorted in a raw grimace after six grueling hours of labor’s torment. Yet, the instant Vilhelmas’s tiny hand grazed her chest, a radiant smile burst forth, bathing the room in a warm, happiness glow. Vilhelm, this alien-like creature with curious eyes, calmed instantly at his mother's touch. The sight struck Alex with a love so fierce it hurt, yet beneath it lurked a shadow of doubt he couldn't shake.

In this sterile room, under these harsh lights, Alex faced the significance of fatherhood but the doubts were ever stronger.  Was he strong enough to bear it? The euphoria of new parenthood collided with Lithuania's harsh economic reality of 2004. Alex's thoughts sometimes drifted to his stepbrother, who had left for Ireland some months earlier. Their last conversation played on repeat in his mind—his voice crackling through a poor phone connection, painting pictures of Dublin's streets decorated with opportunity. "Here, a month's work equals a year's salary back home," his stepbrother boasted.  "The Celtic Tiger is hungry for immigrants. In spite of Alex's initial dismissal of the words, his resolve to succeed in Lithuania kept them planted in his mind like seeds. He tried once and failed.  What if? His doubts and worries were taking over.

As the country struggled with its post-Soviet transition and 16.5% unemployment rate, Alex found himself caught in the undertow of responsibility. His modest salary—barely 800 litas a month (approximately $270 US dollars)—seemed to shrink against the backdrop of rising prices and the endless needs of a growing family. Each week brought news of another friend or neighbor leaving for Ireland, England or Spain. His stepbrother's success stories from Dublin grew more tantalizing with each call, even though Alex detected notes of exaggeration in his voice.

Each morning, Alex left their cozy garage apartment while Klaipėda still slept, working miserable warehouse jobs twelve hours in and out, trying to stay afloat in an economy still trying to find its footing. Many people like him were stuck during the wave of privatization and watched as the difference between prices and wages grew.

Each night, after Vilhelm and Anatig had drifted off to sleep, Alex would sit at their kitchen table, calculator in hand, papers spread before him like a battlefield map. No savings, a shitty job with a shitty salary, and successful friend’s stories about immigration life. Yet between the financial struggles, they found moments of joy. Weekends became sacred—time carved out for family despite their limited means. They'd pack simple picnics in the garage-turned-gathering space, where friends would bring their children and share what they had. These moments, when Vilhelm's laughter echoed against concrete walls, reminded Alex that wealth wasn't measured solely in litas. But even these precious gatherings grew smaller as more friends followed the exodus west, drawn by stories of prosperity like those his brother sent home.

During these days, Anatig proved to be their family's cornerstone, stretching their budget with creative cooking and finding free activities to entertain Vilhelm. She never complained. She'd transformed their small living space into a warm home, as Lithuania's housing market remained out of reach for young families like theirs. "Work hard, provide for your family, and life will be wonderful"—the mantra echoed in Alex's mind, a remnant of the Soviet-era work ethic his parents had instilled. For Alex it was becoming obvious in this new independent Lithuania, caught between its Soviet past and European aspirations, such simple wisdom felt insufficient and punishing.

His stepbrother's path west seemed increasingly like a map to survival, rather than a betrayal of their homeland. The love he felt for Vilhelm and Anatig was unlike anything he'd known—pure, unconditional and terrifying in its intensity. Yet this love came bundled with a gnawing anxiety that grew sharper as the economic transition dragged on. Each month brought new challenges: the rising cost of food, the struggle to buy or maintain a car, the constant mental calculations of what they could afford to sacrifice next.  And as autumn crept into winter, Alex and Anatig would lie awake at night, confiding possible future, immigration plans that were closer than ever. They dreamed of the stability that EU membership might bring—better opportunities for Vilhelm and of a time when they wouldn't need to count every litas. The only one question hung between them: When will they dare to follow?

The breaking point came on an ordinary evening, the kind that usually blurred into countless others. The soft glow of their small 'BEKO' television filled their living room, where Alex and Anatig sought refuge in a movie's temporary escape. Two-year-old Vilhelm played nearby, lost in his own world with a cup of water in innocent exploration. When the cup tipped, sending water cascading across the table, something in Alex snapped. His reaction was visceral, immediate—a surge of rage that felt both foreign and horrifyingly familiar.

"Vilhelm!" he shouted.

In the heartbeat between normalcy and catastrophe, the building transformed from a solid structure to explosive chaos—no warning, no time to react. The shout tore from his throat, carrying echoes of another man's voice, one that had haunted his childhood nightmares. His hand struck before his mind could intervene. Vilhelm's startled cry followed the thunderous sound of palm touching flesh. In that moment, time seemed to fracture—past and present colliding with devastating clarity. Rage parted like a crimson curtain, and there he was—Alex, small and terrified, shrinking into a corner while watching his mothers and stepfather's drunken fury. Now, he saw the same fear in his son's eyes that had once lived in his own.

Anatig's intervention was swift, maternal instinct driving her between father and son. “Alex, stop!” Her voice cut through his rage like a blade through fog. "Calm down! He's just a child. It was an accident." The words struck him with the force of revelation—he had become what he had sworn to destroy. Standing there, watching his son seek shelter behind his wife, Alex felt the carefully constructed walls of his denial crumble. His uncontrollable rage never disappeared, an old friend, a constant companion inherited from his trauma playbook.

People knew Alex has his uncontrollable temper that lived in him, neurotic self-sat beneath his skin like gunpowder, waiting for the smallest spark to ignite the inevitable explosion. The abuse he'd endured—mental, verbal, and physical—hadn't just marked his past—it had also colonized his present, every cell in the body threatening to poison his son's future. The realization was devastating.

Alex quickly darted downstairs to distance himself, to calm down, while each memory surfacing like a body rising from dark waters: the endless nights of hiding in closets, the elaborate lies to teachers about bruises, the constant tiptoe on eggshells around a drunk stepfather, all the while his own biological father remained a distant shadow. These weren't just memories—they were blueprints that had unconsciously shaped his responses to stress, to fear and to parenthood itself.  Deep shame and resentment consumed him.  The stigma of seeking help felt like a trap. What would people think? How could he admit that beneath his carefully maintained facade lurked a frightened, vulnerable little child with psychological shortcomings, who don’t know how to control his emotions and who was still learning to be human? Lithuania's cultural reluctance and deep-seated inner beliefs did not allow even discussing mental health, which amplified his isolation in real time. Therapy felt like an admission of defeat and shame, yet continuing without help meant risking everything he loved. The punch of this recognition brought him to his knees, literally and metaphorically. That night he asked God for help.

Later that night, in the quiet aftermath of his outburst, as Vilhelm's muffled sobs pierced the silence, Alex faced the truth he'd been running from: he wasn't just fighting financial instability or societal dogmatic pressures—he was battling toxic demons that had never went away but taken root in his psyche long ago and was deteriorating his mind slowly, as long as he remained ignorant and afraid, refusing to face his own shortcomings. But desperation has a way of dismantling pride. That night, after Vilhelm had been tucked into bed with extra stories and reassurances, Alex made the call to his stepbrother—the same one who had contributed to his childhood trauma through years of manipulation and mockery. The irony wasn't lost on him, but desperation doesn't choose its lifelines carefully. "Please, I need your help," he pleaded into the phone, each word costing him a piece of his pride. "Can you help me find a temporary place in Ireland while I look for a job?"

Alex saw in Ireland more than just economic opportunity—it was escape, redemption, a chance to break free from the cycles of poverty and abuse that had defined his life. The country's booming economy promised what Lithuania couldn't—enough distance from his past to perhaps finally heal and enough money to provide the stability his family deserved. But as he hung up the phone, staring at his reflection in the darkened window, Alex confronted an uncomfortable truth: geographic distance alone couldn't heal psychological wounds. Running away might change his circumstances, but unless he faced his demons, he risked carrying them across borders, perpetuating the very legacy he was desperate to escape. Alex’s decision to leave was both an act of courage and cowardice—courage to seek better opportunities and cowardice in avoiding the deeper work needed to become the father Vilhelm deserved and the husband Anatig needed.

An all-consuming sense of self-reproach overtook Alex’s thoughts, and withdrawal seemed like the only appropriate way to reconcile the guilt he felt toward Anatig and Vilhelm—ensuring their safety. He was unaware that external forces—what some might refer to as fate—had different plans for his eventual reckoning. Over time, he would come to understand that physical collapse is sometimes a necessary precondition for addressing deeper internal disturbances. But in that moment, he couldn’t have foreseen how precisely those insights would later unfold.

NEXT WEEK! Chapter 17: The Fragility of Life and Human Plans

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