Or a coward who chooses the role that causes him the least pain.
‘Mom said you weren’t yourself after the surgery,’ he finally said.
Not because he didn’t hear me.
Because I needed the last bridge.
The last chance not to see everything.
I looked at him in a way I had never done before.
Without asking.
Without hope for love.
— The cameras recorded everything, Artyom.
He sat down on a chair that leaned against the wall.
That same cheap plastic chair for visitors.
Curved.
Extra.
For the first time in his life, he could not be saved by kind words.
Through the glass of the hallway, I saw Galina Petrovna.
She didn’t scream anymore.
He sat on a hard bench under a yellow lamp.
The fur coat lay nearby, as if his power had vanished along with the fur.
Veronica was brought in later.
She kept trying to talk about her despair.
About my treatment.
That she also wanted to become a mother.
And on another day, I might well have felt sorry for myself.
But not the ones where my children smelled of milk and disinfectant.
I’m not talking about that time my cheek burned from the blow.
I am not talking about that time my son was already being held by unknown hands at the door.
The researcher asked me many questions.
I answered calmly.
Almost professional.
This happens to people in my field.
When everything collapses from within, the voice becomes more even.
This is not force.
It is a form of survival.
Next, they asked me to sign the protocol.
The hand trembled.
I only realized it when the pen scratched across the paper.
The head of security remained silently nearby.
He asked no unnecessary questions.
That is why I was grateful to him.
Sometimes a person’s dignity is demonstrated precisely in this way.
He sees more than he says.
Artyom waited until everyone had left.
It became quiet in the room.
The moon slept.
Leo was snoring nearby.
It started snowing outside the window.
‘Why didn’t you tell my family who you were?’ he asked.
I looked at the children.
In two little faces, for which she has endured too much.
‘Because you asked for it,’ I replied. ‘Because it was more convenient for you to be underestimated than respected.’
He lowered his head.
Continued
And because I am partly to blame myself. I thought that if I kept quiet, they would leave us alone. But silence stops no one. It only teaches others that they can be hurt without any consequences.
She started to cry.
Very reserved.
Almost masculine, as they say.
But that didn’t make me feel better.
Tears don’t always solve problems.
Sometimes they simply confirm that everything is already broken.
The hospital’s lawyer arrived in the morning.
When my colleague
Next, the president of the court.
The news had not yet been made public, but it was impossible to keep it secret for long.
Too many witnesses.
A cruelty that is utterly absurd.
My title sounds far too pompous for such an insignificant case of domestic violence.
Everyone wanted to act quickly.
The security personnel have a stronger presence in the room.
An additional access control system was installed on the door.
The nurse brought me tea in a paper cup.
It had cooled down for a while, but I still had it in my hands.
Sometimes you need warmth, but not for your body.
The feeling that you are still there.
That you have not been erased.
Later I discovered that Veronica was the first to know it.
Not out of conscientious objection.
Out of fear.
He said that his mother had made it all up.
That she just went along with her.
I thought I would officially change my mind later.
This word was the most terrible.
As if a child were a source of pressure.
As if motherhood could be rewritten by someone else’s stubbornness.
As if the pain of one woman gave her the right to enter the room of another woman and decide the fate of the baby.
Galina Petrovna was released on bail
