Todor smiled faintly.
“She still ordered coffee without sugar,” he said.
For a moment, I felt something warm.
Then I looked at my children.
And the warmth disappeared.
“We didn’t plan anything,” I said. “We didn’t plan to get married. We didn’t plan to have a child. We simply… found our way back to each other.”
“At seventy-nine?” Silvia whispered.
“At seventy-nine, I’m still alive, Silvia.”
She recoiled as if my words had struck her.
“I’m not saying you’re not alive.”
“Then why do you speak about me as if I’m a piece of furniture that needs to be put away when it gets too old?”
The judge didn’t interrupt me.
“You said the child is biologically yours,” he noted.
My lawyer stood.
“Yes, Your Honor. Mrs. Mileva and Mr. Stoyanov used a legally performed medical procedure abroad, involving an egg that Mrs. Mileva had preserved many years ago for personal reasons. The pregnancy was carried by a surrogate under a contract arranged according to the laws of that country. There is complete medical and legal documentation.”
The courtroom erupted in noise.
Silvia covered her mouth.
Mikhail slammed his hand on the table.
“This is insane!”
The judge raised his voice.
“Order in the courtroom!”
Emilia moved.
I began rocking her gently.
She was so small.
And all around her, adults were shouting, arguing, and trying to decide whether she had a right to exist.
“I don’t owe you an explanation for every step of my personal life,” I said. “But I owe you the truth because you are my children. And the truth is that I wasn’t deceived. I wasn’t forced. I wasn’t confused. I made this decision after months of medical consultations, conversations with Todor, lawyers, and specialists.”
“You’re seventy-nine!” Mikhail shouted.
“Yes.”
“She’ll be twenty when you’re almost a hundred!”
“And you’ll be fifty-three when she’s twenty. That doesn’t make you incapable of being her brother.”
He stared at me.
“I’m not her brother.”
“By blood, you are.”
