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

At the moment when Daniel told me that the documents of our one-month-old daughter had again been left in the car, I realized for the first time that this forgetting was no longer accidental.

We were standing in front of the public service building. There were four hours and forty-six minutes left until closing. Emma was sleeping on my chest, her small pink hat had slipped over one ear, and in my hand I held a copy of her birth certificate so tightly that the corner of the paper was digging into my palm.

“Give me the folder,” I told Daniel before getting out of the car.

He knitted his brows and looked aside.

“I’ll take it. It’s the same.”

“No, now I want to have it in my hand.”

“Elena, don’t start.”

There was irritation in his voice, not tiredness. I immediately felt the difference.

This was already the seventh attempt.

The first time, Daniel’s documents had “accidentally” remained at home. The second time, his father, Arthur, had felt pain in his chest exactly at the moment when we were preparing to leave. The third time, Margaret had called and said that Emma was crying continuously. The fourth time, something had broken in the computer. The fifth time, Daniel had invented an urgent meeting at work. The sixth time, Margaret had become unwell.

This time everyone was with me.

Daniel. His parents. Emma. Me.

I thought that this way no one would be able to invent a new reason anymore.

I was wrong.

“Wait,” Margaret said and took a small yellow paper talisman from her bag.

The paper was folded into a triangle, and strange signs drawn in red ink could be seen on it. She was straightening the talisman with her fingers, as though the fate of the country depended on its folds.

“Emma’s protective sign has come apart. I have to fold it again, otherwise such an important day will begin with a bad sign.”

I looked at the clock.

Four forty-seven.

“Margaret, you can do this at home.”

“Only one minute.”

One minute turned into five.

She opened it, folded it again, opened it once more, and handed it to Arthur. Arthur lowered his glasses to the tip of his nose and examined the talisman with great seriousness. Daniel, meanwhile, was looking at his phone.

Four forty-nine.

“None of you really wants Emma to be registered in this family,” I said half-jokingly.

All three looked up at me at the same time.

Very quickly.

Very in agreement.

I felt coldness in my stomach.

At that moment the security employee standing by the building door shouted:

“Those who still have business, come in immediately! The system closes at exactly five o’clock!”

I looked at Daniel. For the first time I saw on his face not anxiety, but fear.

“Elena, perhaps we should come another day.”

“Another day?”

“It’s already late today.”

“Today we came for the seventh time.”

Arthur lowered his head. Margaret was still struggling with that little yellow paper.

It was four fifty-two when I ran toward the building with Emma. Daniel followed behind me and muttered something. The operator took my documents, turned on the screen, and began entering the data.

“I need the child’s father’s identity card,” he said.

Daniel felt through his pockets.

Then he suddenly stopped.

“Elena… I left the folder in the car.”

“Go and bring it.”

“Right now.”

He went outside. Four forty-five. Four forty-six. Four forty-seven.

I called him.

“I’m coming,” he answered irritably. “Why are you calling me every minute?”

“Because the system is closing.”

“I know.”

Four forty-nine.

Daniel appeared in the doorway.

But he was not running.

He was walking slowly, holding the folder in his hand, with such calm on his face as if he were taking a walk in the park. At that moment all seven past incidents joined into one picture: the forgotten documents, the sudden pain, the illness, the crying, the delay, and now these slow steps.

They were buying minutes.

They were waiting for me to get tired.

The clock showed five.

“The system is closed,” the operator said.

Daniel stopped beside me and pretended to be surprised.

“What a pity.”

“Daniel, why don’t you want your daughter to exist in your family?” I asked.

His smile disappeared.

And Margaret quietly said behind my back:

“There are things a woman must get used to.”

The words froze in the air.

“Repeat that,” I said and turned toward her.

Margaret opened her mouth, but at that moment Arthur grabbed Daniel by the arm. The folder opened in his hand, and one folded sheet fell from inside onto the floor.

Daniel immediately bent down to pick it up, but I was faster than him. I touched the sheet with my fingers and saw one sentence printed on it…

Daniel squeezed my wrist with his hand.

“Don’t pick that up.”

“Why?”

“Because it is none of your business.”

Margaret looked at me with a pale face.

“Elena, let’s go home.”

“First tell me what this is.”

My name was written on the sheet. Below it were Emma’s date of birth and one word that pierced my eyes like a knife: paternity.

Arthur locked the door, as though only we had remained in the building.

“You will not understand,” he said.

“You prevented me seven times. And on the eighth you are already hiding the documents. Now I must understand everything.”

Daniel lowered his head.

“This family will lose more because of you than you think.”

“The family? Or you?”

Margaret’s voice failed.

“Emma cannot be entered in this family name.”

“Why?”

For several seconds no one moved. Only the wall clock ticked.

Then Daniel told me:

“Because if she is registered as my child, everything will come to light.”

“What everything?”

He did not answer me. Instead, Margaret took another document from her bag and put it on the table.

“We wanted to tell you nothing,” she said. “But now it is already too late.”

A signature could be seen on the last page of the document. A signature I knew very well. Daniel’s.

I turned on my phone and touched the recording button.

“Start again now,” I said. “This time tell me everything…”

Daniel immediately noticed my phone screen.

“Turn off the recording.”

“No.”

“Elena, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I know exactly. For the first time I am doing what you should have done from the very beginning.”

We were standing in the empty hall of the public service building. The operator had already left, but the security employee stood at the door and did not take his eyes off us. The document lying on the table had a paper clip stuck into it, and beside it lay Margaret’s yellow talisman.

“What is this document?” I asked.

Daniel lowered his eyes.

Arthur answered in his place:

“A medical conclusion.”

“Whose?”

Silence answered me.

Margaret bit her lips and finally said:

“Daniel’s.”

I picked up the sheet. It said that at the age of sixteen Daniel had permanently lost the biological ability to have children because of a serious illness. The conclusion had been issued ten years earlier. The doctor’s stamp was clearly visible.

I could hear the sound of blood in my ears.

“You knew this?” I asked Daniel.

“I found out before the marriage.”

“And still you told me nothing.”

“I was afraid you would leave me.”

“And then Emma was born.”

Daniel leaned against the wall.

“I also thought it was a mistake. Or a miracle.”

Arthur looked at him sternly.

“Until a genetic examination was carried out, the child could not be entered in the family name.”

“A genetic examination?” I laughed, but this laughter was from pain. “You already did this?”

Margaret lowered her head.

“Quietly.”

She took a small sealed envelope from her bag. This time it was not gray or plain; it was wrapped in dark green paper and had a laboratory stamp on it.

“We received the result today,” she said.

Daniel reached out his hand.

“Mother, don’t.”

“She must learn the truth anyway.”

I opened the envelope. The sheet was trembling in my hand so much that I looked over the words several times.

Then I read aloud:

“Daniel Harris is Emma’s biological father. Probability: ninety-nine point nine percent.”

Margaret closed her eyes.

Arthur’s face became rigid.

And Daniel sat down on the chair, as though his legs could no longer support him.

“Then why?” I asked. “If she is his child, why were you preventing me?”

No one answered.

I myself understood that the reason was not the child’s origin. The reason was what registration would bring with it.

“Inheritance,” I said.

Arthur raised his head.

Margaret looked frightened.

Daniel said quietly:

“My grandfather’s will says that part of the family property belongs to the first legal grandchild. If Emma is registered, the share will be transferred to her.”

“And you wanted that share to remain with someone else.”

“It is not only money,” Arthur said. “The company is threatened with collapse.”

“No,” I answered. “You were afraid you would lose control.”

At that moment my phone rang. The number was unfamiliar. I answered.

“Mrs. Harris,” said a man’s calm voice, “I am Nikoloz Kavtaradze, the family notary. This morning I received a message sent by your husband saying that he renounces the child.”

Daniel jumped to his feet.

“What?”

The notary continued:

“But I have one more important thing to tell you. I am not the only one who has the full copy of the will. Its second copy has been sent in your name and you will receive it tomorrow morning…”

At that very moment Daniel snatched the phone from me, ran toward the door, and I realized for the first time that all this time they had not been preventing my child’s registration — they had been trying to destroy, before then, the thing that would change everything tomorrow…