The pancakes were already cold. Polina was trying to bite the tail off a dinosaur-shaped pancake with a burnt edge when Oleh walked into the kitchen and set an envelope between the plates. “What’s that? ” I asked.
“I’m filing for divorce. ” He didn’t look up. “And I’m taking the children. ”
Polina stopped chewing.
Artem lifted his head, looked at his father, then at me, then back at his plate. I picked up the envelope. “Polina, finish eating. We’re leaving soon.
”
Oleh left the kitchen. I heard him put on his jacket in the hallway, heard the lock click. Polina stared at the envelope. “Mom, what’s in there?
”
“Just papers. Nothing scary. ”
She believed me. At six, they still believe you.
My mother died in August. Heart attack, at night. We found out in the morning, when she didn’t answer her calls. Polina asked why Grandma wasn’t coming to her birthday.
I said Grandma went far away. Polina thought about it and said, “Then I’ll draw her a card. Will you send it? ”
The card is still in my bag.
I couldn’t throw it away. Mom worked at the tax office her whole life. She saved, economized, never traveled. She always said she’d get to it.
She didn’t. Everything she had was a two-room apartment in the center of Poltava. Olena Vasylivna, my mother’s friend and a lawyer, arrived the day after I sent her the divorce documents. She sat across from me at the kitchen table and read them for a long time in silence.
I made coffee. She didn’t touch it. “Margaryta,” she said at last. “Why does he want the children?
”
I didn’t understand the question. He never picked them up from school. Never came to a parent meeting. When Artem was sick in February, three days of fever, Oleh didn’t even come in the room.
I knew that. So why? “Maybe just to hurt me,” I said finally. Olena Vasylivna set the papers down and folded her hands.
“Your mother’s apartment. Who is it registered to? ”
“She willed it to the children. The notary said I manage it as guardian until they come of age.
”
“Guardian. ” She repeated the word slowly, tasting it. “Margaryta, when did Oleh find out about the will? ”
“After Mom died, the notary called—”
“No.
When did he actually find out? ”
I didn’t answer. I’d never thought about it. She reached into her bag and took out a small notebook, old-fashioned, grid paper, a pen on an elastic band.
“Your mother called me. She said she wanted to leave the apartment to the grandchildren, but she didn’t know how to keep Oleh from reaching it. She didn’t trust him, Margaryta. Not for a long time.
She told me he asked about the apartment. The price. How the ownership was structured. Several times.
She evaded him. She knew how, but she was on guard. ”
“When was this? ”
“April.
Four months before she died. ”
So he knew. He knew while my mother was still alive, while he stood beside me at the funeral holding my hand. He had been waiting.
On September first, Oleh came in the morning to walk the children to the school assembly. I was buckling Polina’s backpack. He looked at the children, said, “Well, let’s go,” and started scrolling through his phone while we put on our shoes. We walked in silence.
Polina held my hand and chattered about her new teacher. Oleh walked ahead, phone in hand. At nine o’clock, everything stopped. Cars halted.
Voices faded. Someone turned off music near the school gate. The national minute of silence. Oleh grabbed my elbow.
“Let’s go,” he hissed through his teeth. “It’s a hundred meters to the school. Why are we standing here? ”
I didn’t move.
“What is this, a circus? ”
He pulled harder. Artem stood beside us, watching his father. He said nothing.
Polina pressed against my side and squeezed my fingers. I stood. The minute lasted longer than you’d think, when you’re silent and thinking about people who are gone. Oleh let go of my elbow and walked to his car.
He didn’t say goodbye to the children. Artem watched him go. Late that night, I heard Artem talking to Polina, almost in a whisper. “If we don’t confirm it, they’ll take Mom to a hospital.
”
I sat up in bed. What hospital? Polina, sleepy: “What hospital? ”
“The kind where people live.
He said he’ll tell the judge Mom is sick and can’t take care of us. ”
“But Mom isn’t sick. ”
“I know. ”
“Then why is he saying that?
”
Artem didn’t answer. Or answered so quietly I couldn’t hear. I didn’t go in. I sat in the dark and listened to a car pass somewhere outside and fade.
A week before court, Polina came to my room. She stood in the doorway in her princess pajamas, the purple ribbon—the one my mother had given her—crooked in her hair. Her eyes were wide awake. “Mom, I heard Dad on the phone last night.
”
I sat her on the bed. “What did he say? ”
“I went for water. He was in the living room.
The door wasn’t closed. I stood by the wall. ” She tugged at the ribbon. “He was talking about the apartment.
That it’s me and Artem’s. That if he has us, the money will be his. He was talking to a woman. He said, ‘Virunchyk, a little more and everything will be fine.
‘”
I couldn’t breathe. “He said you can’t afford a lawyer because you only make ten thousand. ”
Polina looked at me. “Is that true?
”
“Yes. ”
“Is that not much? ”
“It’s enough. ”
She was quiet for a moment.
“He said you’ll lose. And I didn’t like the way he said it. ”
I held her. She stayed pressed against me for a long time.
Olena Vasylivna came in the morning. I repeated everything word for word. She wrote in her notebook, then did the math. “Eighteen thousand a month rent, minimum, for a two-bedroom in central Poltava.
Twelve months. Ten years until Polina comes of age. ” She showed me the number: two million one hundred sixty thousand hryvnias. I stared at it.
“Oleh’s debts. Do you know how much? ”
“He mentioned problems with business, but—”
“Four million. I checked the registries.
Loans, suppliers, office rent. Four million in debt, Margaryta. I’m a lawyer. These are public records.
” She closed the notebook. “Do you understand now? The children aren’t children. They’re money.
The guardian manages the property until they’re adults. If the guardian is Oleh, he rents out the apartment, takes the income, pays off his debts. You’re just an obstacle. ”
“What do I do?
”
“We prepare. ”
We prepared for three weeks. Olena Vasylivna came almost every evening. She laid sheets of paper between us—his lawyer’s arguments on one side, ours on the other.
“He’ll say this. You answer like this. No more, no less. ”
I repeated the lines.
She nodded or shook her head. One evening she said, “You’re nervous about your answers. Don’t be. Just say what we practiced.
”
“I’m not a lawyer. I’m not used to a courtroom. ”
“You’re a mother. You can do anything.
”
At some point I mentioned that Oleh bought his way out of mobilization—new papers every six months. Olena Vasylivna looked up from her notebook. “Do you have proof? ”
“Only that I know.
He keeps it on his phone. ”
“A man spending serious money to dodge the draft, four million in debt, fighting for the children over an apartment—that’s a character reference too. But without evidence, it’s just words. ”
The night before court, she gathered the papers into a folder.
“We’ve done everything we could. ”
I spent that night in the kitchen. At one in the morning I made tea, put wildflowers in a vase on the table, and sat looking at them. At two, I heard Artem and Polina whispering.
Their door was cracked open. They thought I was asleep. I stood in the dark hallway and listened. “What do we say tomorrow?
” Polina asked. “The truth,” Artem said. “Dad said something different. ”
“I know what Dad said.
” His voice was quiet but steady. I didn’t recognize it. Too old for him. Too serious.
“But if we lie, Mom will be alone. And we’ll be without her. ”
Polina was quiet for a long time. I held my breath.
“Okay,” she said finally. “We’ll tell the truth. ”
“Are you scared? ”
“A little.
”
“Me too. Give me your hand. ”
I went back to the kitchen and sat down. A streetlight outside kept flickering.
Poltava District Court. A three-story building of red brick. Plastic chairs with worn edges in the hallway. Judge Antonenko, Anna Petrivna—a woman around fifty, glasses on a chain, a deep, tired voice.
Someone who’d seen hundreds of these cases and expected nothing new. Oleh’s lawyer, Vakulenko, in a gray suit, spoke well and at length. He stood at an angle to the judge’s table, like a man who knew exactly where to stand. “The mother’s unstable income.
A modest salary. ” He paused, letting the room feel it. “No housing of her own after the divorce. A psychological evaluation.
” He set a file on the table, corner to corner. “The father is ready to provide stability. The father has the means. The father has the interest.
”
I listened and watched his hands—confident, no wasted movement. Then Vakulenko called Tamara Petrivna, our neighbor. She was sixty, in a beige jacket, hair pinned back, hands folded over her stomach. She looked mostly at the table.
“Do you know the Smyrny family? ”
“Yes. Neighbors, third floor. ”
“What can you say about the conditions the children live in?
”
She spoke like a memorized text. She often saw the children alone in the entryway. The mother was absent for long periods. The children argued without adults around.
Once Polina stood in the elevator alone at seven in the evening. I remembered that evening. I had stood at the apartment door holding it open. Polina rode down by herself because she wanted to press the button herself.
That was our thing. I could hear the elevator. Tamara Petrivna stood in the entrance hall and watched. Olena Vasylivna wrote on a sheet and pushed it to me: “Calm.
I nodded. ”
When Vakulenko finished, Olena Vasylivna asked the neighbor one thing: had she ever seen me scream at the children, fail to feed them, leave them alone at night? “No,” Tamara Petrivna said. “To none of it.
”
Olena Vasylivna sat down. The court appointed an independent psychologist. Standard procedure. The specialist met Artem and Polina separately, without parents.
Polina told the psychologist she’d heard her father on the phone talking about the apartment, saying the money would be his. She mentioned the name “Virunia. ” The psychologist wrote it down, word for word. Oleh stood up.
“She’s a child. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. ”
Vakulenko put a hand on his shoulder. Oleh sat down.
Then Artem. A twelve-year-old boy in the blue shirt I’d ironed that morning. Hair combed. Hands on his knees.
He looked straight at the judge. Vakulenko began, calm and prepared. Is it comfortable at home? Is there time for hobbies?
Would you like to live with your father? Artem answered. “I heard him repeating the right words, but they weren’t his. Like from a script.
” A pause. “With Dad, it’s also good. ”
Then he stopped. Vakulenko waited.
Artem looked at his hands, then at me, then back at his hands. “Dad told me to say that,” he said. “But it’s not true. ”
The room went silent.
Judge Antonenko looked up. “Artem, what exactly isn’t true? ”
“That Mom is struggling and can’t manage. She manages.
She’s always there when it matters. In February I was sick for four days. Mom didn’t go to work. Dad didn’t come once.
”
Vakulenko started to speak. The judge looked at him. He went quiet. “Continue,” she said to Artem.
“Dad said we have to say home is bad and we want to live with him. He said if we don’t, Mom could be taken to a hospital. ” Artem’s voice stayed steady. “I don’t want to say that.
It’s not true. And I won’t. ”
I didn’t look at Oleh. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him drag a hand down his face, slowly, and drop it.
“One more thing,” Artem said. “In the car. When Dad drove us last month, he thought I was asleep in the back. He was on the phone with the same woman.
He said if we win the case, we pay off the debts in the first year, and then we leave. ”
Artem sat up straight. “I wasn’t asleep. I heard all four stops.
”
Silence. The kind where people are present but no one speaks and barely anyone breathes. Judge Antonenko wrote. For a long time.
Vakulenko stood still. Oleh stared at the table. Finally the judge took off her glasses—the first time in the entire hearing—and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. Then she put them back on.
“The court rules,” she said. “Based on the testimony of the minor children, the documents submitted, and the established circumstances, the residence of the children, Artem Smyrny, twelve years old, and Polina Smyrna, six years old, is determined with their mother, Smyrna Margaryta Oleksiivna. The father is granted visitation according to a separate schedule. ”
Oleh stood up and walked out without looking at anyone.
Vakulenko followed, speaking quietly. Olena Vasylivna squeezed my shoulder. She didn’t say anything. She just smiled.
On the courthouse steps, the three of us stood together. Artem beside me, almost my height now. Polina holding my hand and looking out at the street. What came next—the apartment, Oleh’s debts, whether Artem would become a normal twelve-year-old again instead of that adult voice in the dark—I didn’t know.
Oleh lost this case, but he wasn’t gone. His debts weren’t gone. Virunchyk still existed somewhere out there. But that day, on those steps, everything was fine, and the sun was bright enough to make you squint.
I was glad the children stayed with me. Not because of the apartment, not even mostly because of the apartment. I was glad because they had never been what Oleh wanted.
He had never wanted them at all.
