10. Harper
HARPER
I’ve worn the same gray suit to every meeting with Denise for weeks, and this morning I stand in front of the mirror for ten straight minutes convinced it suddenly looks wrong on me, like the fabric itself knows what today is.
Viktor straightens my collar in the hallway before we leave. It’s unnecessary. My collar’s fine, but I let him do it anyway because his hands are steady and mine haven’t stopped shaking since I woke up.
“You’re going to be fine,” he says.
“You don’t know that.”
“No, but you didn’t fall apart in front of me at the club, and you had a lot more to lose that night than you think you do today.”
It’s not exactly reassurance, but it steadies me. We drive to the courthouse with his hand resting over mine on the console the entire way, saying nothing else.
The courtroom is smaller than I expected, wood paneling instead of the marble I pictured, a judge who looks perpetually unimpressed by everyone in front of her. Denise sits beside me at our table, calm in the specific way that means she’s run through every version of today in her head already.
“Mr. Markov,” she says, leaning across me to shake Viktor’s hand properly, the first real conversation they’ve had since the wedding, where there’d barely been time for more than a nod between them. “Good to see you again under slightly less rushed circumstances.”
“Ms. Reyes. Thank you for everything you’ve put into this.”
“It’s my job. A job I happen to think we’re going to win, if that’s worth anything before we start.” She glances at her notes one more time, then at me. “You ready?”
“No. But let’s do it anyway.”
Across the aisle, the Ivanovs sit with their lawyer, and my chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with strangers and everything to do with exactly how well I used to know these two people.
Mia’s wedding, all those years ago, the two of them dancing badly and happily to a song none of us could name afterward.
Sunday dinners at their house before everything fell apart, the grandmother’s hands, that same particular grandmother, teaching me to make pierogi in a kitchen that smelled like dill for hours afterward.
They were family before they were plaintiffs, before grief turned them into people I had to defend myself against instead of people I used to call by their first names.
Seeing them now, across a courtroom aisle instead of across a dinner table, is a particular flavor of grief, one I hadn’t fully braced for until this exact moment.
They look older than I remember, worn down in a way that six months of legal warfare will do to anyone, however righteous they believe their cause is. An elderly couple who look like they should be tending a garden somewhere instead of fighting me for custody of the granddaughter we both love.
The grandmother has the same kind eyes I remember from a decade of holidays, though they don’t match anything her lawyer’s about to say, and she keeps glancing toward me with an expression I can’t quite place, not hostile exactly, closer to grief that’s found nowhere else to go.
The grandfather sits perfectly still, hands folded, watching the room with an attention that doesn’t match the warm, easy man I remember from Mia’s wedding at all.
There’s a stillness to him now that reminds me, oddly, of Viktor, the same economy of movement, like neither man wastes energy on anything that isn’t necessary.
He’s harder to read than the warm, easy man I remember, and it unsettles me in a way I can’t fully name, though I tell myself it’s just the strangeness of grief and a courtroom doing what grief and courtrooms always do to people who used to love each other.
Their lawyer opens with the home study report, reading through the parts that paint me as barely holding things together, the sitter schedule, the overdrafts from months ago, my work hours listed like evidence in a trial that isn’t actually about crime.
“The court should note,” she says, “that Ms. Wilcox, now Mrs. Markov, was relying on paid childcare for the majority of her niece’s waking hours as recently as five weeks ago. My clients simply want the court to consider whether that pattern reflects the stability a six-year-old deserves.”
Denise counters each point calmly, character letters read into the record one after another: Marisol’s, Mrs. Bennett’s, my manager’s, each one building a picture the paperwork alone doesn’t show.
She walks the judge through the marriage itself next: the dates, the joint account we opened last week, and the photographs from dinner that Denise insisted we take specifically for this. Evidence that we’ve built something that looks, on paper and in practice, like a stable home.
“The petitioner’s circumstances have changed substantially since the initial filing,” Denise says.
“Ms. Wilcox is now married, in a stable household, with a support system that includes her husband and the extended household staff who assist with childcare when needed. The instability my colleague describes no longer exists, if it ever did.”
It goes back and forth for nearly an hour, and I hold Viktor’s hand under the table the entire time, grateful for something solid to hold onto while strangers debate whether I’m fit to raise my own niece.
Then their lawyer shifts tactics.
“Your honor, we’d also like to address the court’s concerns regarding the petitioner’s current associations.
” She glances at her notes. “Mrs. Markov’s husband has, shall we say, a colorful business history.
My clients have deep concerns about the environment their granddaughter would be raised in, married to a man like Viktor Markov. ”
“Objection.” Denise is on her feet instantly. “Character attacks with no bearing on the custody question at hand.”
“Goes directly to environment and stability, your honor.”
“I’ll allow a brief line of questioning.” The judge doesn’t look thrilled about it, but she nods anyway.
The lawyer turns and, for the first time, addresses her own client directly, some procedural formality about confirming testimony. “Mr. Ivanov, is it your understanding that Mr. Markov’s business dealings raise concerns for your granddaughter’s welfare?”
“Yes.” The grandfather’s voice is quiet, controlled, barely above what’s needed to reach the microphone. “Deep concerns.”
I don’t understand it. The exact words don’t mean much to me beyond the obvious insult buried in them. But beside me, Viktor goes completely still.
Not as tense as he was in the car. This is colder, immediate, his hand going rigid inside mine, his jaw setting in a way I’ve never seen on him before, not at the club, not anywhere.
I glance sideways at him. He’s staring at the grandfather with an intensity that has nothing to do with a lawyer’s cheap character attack, his eyes fixed on the old man’s face like he’s checking it against a memory.
That makes no sense. He’s never met these people before today.
His hand tightens around mine, hard enough that I nearly wince.
“Are you okay?” I whisper, low enough that only he can hear it.
“Fine.” He doesn’t look at me when he says it. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Harper.” My name comes out clipped, not unkind, but final, a door closing on the question before I can push it further.
I want to press him on it, want to ask what exactly about an old man’s quiet voice put that look on his face. But the judge is already moving the proceedings along, and Denise is already rising to redirect.
I turn my attention back to the front of the room, though some part of me stays fixed on the stillness in Viktor’s hand, refusing to fully let go of mine even now.
The hearing grinds on. Denise makes her closing points, sharp and confident, the marriage entered cleanly into the record, the stability argument landing exactly the way we hoped it would.
The Ivanovs’ lawyer makes her final push, painting me one more time as unstable, unfit, married into danger I supposedly can’t understand.
The judge announces she’ll take the matter under brief recess before ruling, fifteen minutes, and the room stands. Viktor’s hand finally loosens around mine, though his face doesn’t loosen with it.
We step out into the hallway together, and Denise catches up to us a moment later, already talking.
“That went about as well as it could have. I’ll have the written ruling motion filed by tomorrow, but off the record, I’d be shocked if the judge doesn’t rule in our favor.
I want to go over a few details with you both before you leave, if you have a minute. ”
“Of course,” I say, though half my attention is still on Viktor, who’s gone quiet beside me in a way that has nothing to do with Denise.
Denise walks us through what happens next, the timeline for the ruling, and what to expect if the Ivanovs try to appeal, and I only half absorb the practical things because I’m watching Viktor nod along at all the right moments while looking like he’s somewhere else entirely.
She excuses herself once she’s covered everything, off to catch her next client, and the second she’s out of earshot I turn to him.
“Viktor.” I keep my voice low, pulling him a few steps away from the crowd spilling out of the courtroom. “What was that in there? You went completely rigid.”
“It was nothing.” He says it easily, already reaching for his phone like the conversation’s over. “Old business rivalry getting dragged up somewhere it doesn’t belong. Lawyers do that, dig up anything that sounds bad, whether or not it’s actually relevant.”
“You didn’t look like a man annoyed by a cheap tactic. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
“I looked like a man who doesn’t enjoy hearing his name used as a weapon in a courtroom. That’s all this is.” He slides an arm around my shoulders, casual, steering us both toward the exit.