Silvia began to cry.
Mikhail didn’t move.
Todor simply closed his eyes.
I held Emilia closer.
It wasn’t a victory.
I didn’t feel like a winner.
I was a mother who had just discovered how far her own children could go when fear became mixed with greed.
And I was the mother of a baby who needed me more than ever.
The case continued for several more months.
There were evaluations.
Conversations with doctors.
Financial assessments.
Every week, someone checked whether I was reasonable enough, healthy enough, and capable enough to be a mother.
At first, it humiliated me.
Then I began to look at it differently.
I kept a diary.
I wrote down Emilia’s feeding times, medical appointments, vaccinations, conversations with her pediatrician, and our walks in the park. Not because I needed to prove my love to anyone.
But because I wanted to make sure no one could ever say that I had acted without thinking.
