Part 4 — They Prevented Me for the Seventh Time from Registering My Newborn Daughter in the Family Name, but on the Eighth Attempt Daniel Turned Pale

I could still hear Nikoloz’s last words when Daniel grabbed the door handle.

“Stop,” I told him.

He looked at me.

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“No, Daniel. This time I do.”

The security employee stepped in front of the door.

“Ma’am, is everything all right?”

“Call the police,” I said. “These people are trying to take a document from me.”

Daniel changed immediately. A few seconds earlier he had been angry, but now his voice became softer.

“Elena, let’s go home and talk calmly.”

“We talked calmly for four years. And every time you invented a different reason.”

Margaret folded her arms across her chest.

“We simply wanted to protect the family.”

“Not the family. Your share.”

The phone came to life again. This time Nikoloz was calling.

“Your conversation has been recorded,” he told me. “And I advise you to contact a lawyer immediately. This morning Daniel signed a statement that he was voluntarily delaying the child’s registration.”

Daniel’s face lost its color.

“This is impossible.”

“I have your signature,” Nikoloz answered calmly. “I also have your electronic messages.”

Daniel called his lawyer.

“Mirian, come immediately. You have to stop everything.”

He listened for several seconds.

Then his face changed.

“What do you mean, you refuse?”

The lawyer’s voice was so loud that I heard it too.

“I will not sign a statement serving to hide property from the child. You are no longer my client if you want me to protect you by circumventing the law.”

Daniel slowly lowered the phone.

At that moment he saw for the first time that the people around him were no longer standing there because of his wishes. Everyone was only trying to save themselves.

The police arrived in ten minutes.

They listened to the recording, checked the documents, and took from Daniel the folder that he had been “unable” to bring seven times.

“You are using this against me,” he told me.

“No,” I answered. “You yourself were using it against your own child.”

That same night I returned to Daniel’s house only to take Emma’s things.

A small wooden shelf still hung in her room, on which Margaret put the yellow talisman every morning. The room was empty. Only one white blanket remained on the bed.

Daniel stood in the doorway.

“Elena, stay.”

“No.”

“I can fix everything.”

“No. You can only face the consequences.”

He picked up the child’s photograph from the table.

“Give me at least one chance.”

“You had a chance when I first asked you why you did not want her to be registered.”

“I was afraid.”

“I know. But fear did not force you to lie. Your choice did.”

Before I left, I saw the yellow talisman lying on the table. Its corner was torn. I picked it up and put it in my bag.

The next day I went to Nikoloz.

We read the full copy of the will in a small conference room. One part of Grandfather Harris’s property really did belong to the first legal grandchild, but it also said that artificially obstructing the child’s registration would be grounds for canceling the inheritance.

Daniel and his parents appeared before the court not because I wanted revenge, but because they had tried to falsify official documents, issue threats, and hide the child’s property right.

Before the hearing began, Daniel was made to listen to the recording.

His own voice could be heard there.

“If Emma is registered as my child, everything will come to light.”

Daniel raised his head.

“I did not say it like that.”

Mirian, his former lawyer, placed a sheet in front of him.

“That is your voice.”

“I was in a panic at that time.”

“Panic does not change words.”

Daniel listened to the recording again. This time he closed his eyes.

For the first time he heard his own voice the way I had heard it for months.

His phrases no longer sounded like excuses. They were decisions.

The court officially recognized Emma as Daniel’s daughter. Her surname was entered in the documents. The inheritance share was temporarily placed under trust management, and my daughter received it when the law allowed her to do so.

Daniel and his parents were punished for forgery and violating the child’s rights. An independent manager was appointed to the company. Daniel lost his house, but most of all he lost what belonged to him most: my trust in him.

I was not happy about his downfall.

I simply no longer stepped aside to protect him.

Three months later I moved to Batumi.

I rented a small apartment several streets away from the sea. In the mornings I worked in a café, and in the evenings I finished translating documents remotely. I placed a small wooden table for Emma by the window.

One day she drew our house with pencils. The roof was violet, and the sea was green.

“Who is this?” I asked when I found a small man in the drawing.

“Daddy,” she told me.

My heart contracted.

“Do you want him to be here?”

Emma looked at the drawing for a long time.

“Only if he knocks on the door.”

That was everything she needed to know.

Several weeks later Daniel contacted me again.

First he sent me a letter. Then flowers. Finally he sent me a short message: “I want us to start again. Not for the property. For Emma.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I answered:

“You should have been the father Emma needed when she still could not speak. Now entering her life will happen only by her wish. And I am not going to return to you.”

He did not write to me again.

On the first day of winter, snow came into the yard. Emma stood by the window and drew a house on the glass with her little finger.

And I took that yellow paper talisman out of the drawer. Its corner was still torn, but this time I was no longer afraid.

It was no longer a protective sign.

It was proof that they had delayed me seven times, and on the eighth I had asked no one for permission to protect my own child.

I put the talisman on the windowsill.

It was snowing outside.

Inside, Emma was laughing.

And for the first time in our house I was no longer waiting for any clock.