Emilia was lying in her crib, moving her little arms.
Silvia slowly approached.
“Can I hold her?”
My heart tightened.
I looked at my daughter.
Then at the baby.
“Yes.”
Silvia picked her up awkwardly.
For the first few seconds, she looked as though she didn’t know where to put her hands.
Then Emilia grabbed her finger.
Silvia began to cry.
“She’s so tiny.”
“Yes.”
“Mom…”
I waited.
“I really was afraid.”
I nodded.
“I know.”
“But I was also angry. Because…” She swallowed. “Because I thought that if you had another child, everything you had done for us would become less important.”
Those words surprised me.
“What does that mean?”
“My whole life, I told myself that we were your purpose. Me and Misho. That you sacrificed everything for us. And when Emilia came along, I felt… replaced.”
I sat beside her.
“No one can replace your child, Silvia.”
“I know that in my head. But not in my heart.”
I put my hand on her shoulder.
“You will always be my daughter. And Mikhail will always be my son. Emilia doesn’t take anything away from you.”
“But she’ll inherit.”
There was the truth.
Small.
Uncomfortable.
But still there.
I looked at her.
“Yes. She will inherit. Just like you will. But love isn’t property that gets divided into square meters.”
Silvia lowered her head.
“I’m sorry about the lawsuit.”
Those words couldn’t erase anything.
They couldn’t.
But they were a beginning.
“And I’m sorry I kept you at a distance,” I said. “I shouldn’t have told you everything on the first day. But I should have told you more.”
She nodded.
Emilia made a little sound and smiled in her sleep.
Silvia looked at her.
“Maybe one day she’ll call me Auntie.”
“Maybe.”
Mikhail came much later.
Not with a gift.
Not with an apology.
He came with questions.
“What’s going to happen to the house?”
That was the first thing he said.
Todor was there.
He looked at him calmly.
“Hello, Mikhail.”
Mikhail didn’t answer.
