The district court on that day seemed particularly gray and heavy, as if the walls sensed that a final point was about to be put not just in a case, but in someone’s life. I walked up the familiar steps, met Kharlamov’s gaze in the corridor. He nodded, said he was ready to fight to the end, but warned me to be mentally prepared for any outcome. He repeated that even a bad decision is not forever, that it can be appealed, that the fight can continue. I listened, but inside I only felt a steady hum, like before a big injection when you know it’s going to hurt, but it’s too late to run.
In the courtroom, we each sat on our respective sides. Marina appeared a little later, as always impeccable, with a neat handbag and a restrained smile. Chernov confidently settled in next to her, casually crossing his legs as if he had come not to a court hearing but a business meeting. The judge entered, announced the start, checked attendance, and stated that she was ready to announce the decision in the case, reminding everyone that she had considered the parties’ testimonies, expert reports, the opinion of the guardianship authority, and the materials presented in the form of a recording. I could already feel everything inside me clenching into a tight, hard knot, because I understood all too well which materials had made the strongest impression on everyone.
She began to read in a dry, official voice, which held neither malice nor sympathy, only a familiarity with such texts. First came the general descriptive part. I barely heard the words; they merged into a dull noise, but suddenly my attention sharpened when it came to the key phrases. The court established that the marriage was to be dissolved. That was expected. The court finds the plaintiff’s arguments about her greater financial stability and stable lifestyle to be well-founded. I was prepared for that too. The court recognizes that the defendant has peculiarities in his emotional responses that require professional attention. I felt that sentence like a punch to the gut. But the real pain came when she said that, based on the materials presented, the court was inclined to determine the child’s place of residence with the mother, and to establish a separate visitation schedule with the father. At that moment, somewhere deep inside me, something finally gave up. I stood like a condemned man who had already heard the most important part, and the rest sounded like echoes.
It was at that very moment, as the judge’s voice was moving towards the concluding part, that the courtroom door creaked softly but distinctly. Someone entered. Someone tried to motion them to stop, but a thin, yet surprisingly firm child’s voice, which I recognized without a doubt, rang out. The judge automatically cut her sentence short and looked up. Standing in the doorway was Sofya in her neat school uniform, her hair in braids. Next to her, my cousin Olga, whom I had asked to stay with the child at home if Marina couldn’t, but certainly had not asked to bring her here, fidgeted nervously. My daughter was holding her old, battered tablet, clutching it to her chest like a shield, and looking directly at the judge, not at me, not at her mother. A second later, a murmur rose in the courtroom. One of the judge’s assistants asked Olga to take the child out, citing that the hearing was almost over. Marina jumped up, her face turning so pale it was as if someone had drained the blood from her. She hissed through her teeth what her daughter was doing here and that this was an unauthorized act. But Sofya, to my astonishment, went neither to her nor to me, but took a few steps forward, bypassing a row of benches, and said in a thin but firm voice that she wanted to say something important, that it concerned her because it was about who she would live with. The judge looked at her for a couple of long seconds, then, to everyone’s surprise, asked everyone to calm down, told Olga to remain in the courtroom, and approached the matter no longer as a machine, but as a person. She asked Sofya if she was ready to speak, if she understood where she was. Sofya nodded, said she knew it was a court, that they were deciding who she would live with, and that she had heard many words about how she was supposedly scared of me, how I shout and might do something terrible, and about what a great mom she has and how she needs to be protected from me. Then she took a breath, looked directly at the judge, and uttered a phrase that cut through the air like a knife: she said that people sometimes lie not only to each other but also to the court, and that adults think children don’t see or hear anything, but that’s not true.
Marina was already standing, her fingers digging into the back of the bench, her eyes darting between the judge and her daughter. Chernov frowned, trying with a gesture, a look, to somehow stop what was happening. But Sofya, at that moment, was clearly living in her own decision. The judge, after a slight hesitation, asked what exactly she wanted to say, and if it wouldn’t be better to stick to what was already stated in the psychologist’s report and the conversation with the guardianship representatives. To which my daughter replied with unexpected firmness that what was written there was not all true, because the doctor only heard what her mother told him, not what happened when they thought she wasn’t listening. And that she had something that the adults didn’t want to show. Here she raised her old tablet, blushing slightly, as if only now realizing how serious all this was, and said that it contained a recording of a conversation between her mom and the doctor, where they were discussing how to make her dad look sick and dangerous so the court would believe only them.
Someone in the courtroom gasped loudly. The judge sharply raised her hand, demanding silence, and asked Sofya if she understood what she was saying and if she was sure that this device really contained a recording relevant to the case. My daughter nodded, gave me a quick look, a mixture of fear and determination, and then looked back at the judge. And I saw in her eyes that same adult seriousness I never wanted to see in a child. Marina tried to regain control of the situation, speaking loudly, almost shouting, that this was manipulation, that I had obviously turned the child against her, that the girl didn’t understand what she was saying, that the old tablet hadn’t worked in a long time, and that this circus needed to be stopped immediately. Chernov chimed in, stating that such unauthorized actions could not be permitted, that evidence is collected and presented in the prescribed legal manner, not at the initiative of a minor. Kharlamov, on the contrary, asked the court to listen to the child, at least regarding why she believed the psychologist’s report and her mother’s stories did not reflect reality. He spoke calmly, emphasizing that this was about the fate of a living child, not a blank piece of paper.
The judge looked at all of us in silence for a while, then sighed wearily, but her voice was firm. She said that the child had already participated in conversations with the psychologist and guardianship authorities, meaning the court had acknowledged that her age allowed her to express her opinion. And since she was now insisting that she had significant information, it was impossible to ignore it, otherwise everyone would be left with the feeling that the court had chosen to turn a blind eye to possible deception. After that, she asked the clerk to arrange for the tablet to be connected to the screen, and invited Sofya to the table to hand over the device through her. She explained to her daughter that everyone would be watching and listening, and asked if she was ready for that. Sofya nodded, clutching the tablet to her chest so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
When the old, scratched tablet was connected to the cable, many in the courtroom exchanged glances; someone whispered that the toy probably wouldn’t even turn on. But to my astonishment, the screen came to life, albeit slowly and dimly. Sofya, standing next to the clerk, confidently opened the video folder; there were several short clips and one long one. She pointed to it and said that this was the one where her mom and the doctor were talking in the kitchen, that she had filmed it at night because she was afraid the battery wouldn’t last until the end. The judge asked everyone to be silent. The clerk pressed the play icon, and a tense, ringing pause hung in the courtroom.
The screen showed a slightly tilted image; you could see the edge of a table, the backs of chairs, part of the kitchen. Marina’s voice was clear, despite the rustling and distant sounds of a television. She was speaking in that very tone I hated most, confident, slightly mocking, discussing the upcoming hearing with Vorontsov, saying they needed to prep the girl again so she wouldn’t waver in court, so she would repeat the words about fear and shouting they had already rehearsed. She laughed that judges love stories about poor, scared children being saved from a mentally unstable parent. Then the conversation smoothly shifted to the financial part. She calmly, without a hint of shame, discussed how good it was that they had managed to withdraw the money from the account in advance and register the house in a way that it would be considered her personal property. Vorontsov agreed, saying that with such a set of facts, I wouldn’t stand a chance, that in his report, he would carefully highlight my “peculiarities” so the court would have no doubts. The longer the recording went on, the quieter the courtroom became. Even those who had initially been watching with curiosity now sat motionless. On the video, Vorontsov quite clearly spoke about how, and I quote, “if everything goes smoothly, we can continue to help clients like this,” mentioning some of his reliable contacts in other courts, noting that for good money, you could essentially write the same report, just changing the names. At one point, Marina, laughing, said that the hardest part of all this was tolerating me under the same roof until the final decision, that sometimes she herself shook with the desire to throw me out on the street right now, but she had to maintain some semblance of calm in front of the child…
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