A. I think she's warm. I don't know about the rest.
Q. Mr. Hadek—
A. Sir, can I say something. It's too big, you're right. It was too big when I bought it. It was big enough to fit two of me. Mrs. Petrenko upstairs took it in for me. She stayed up three nights on it. She wouldn't let me pay her. She said it was a disgrace for a father to go in front of a judge in his work clothes, and she was right, and that's why I'm wearing it. The button's hers. Off her husband's coat. He passed. She said he would have wanted it to go to court. So I don't know about better. It's the best one I could get. I'm sorry it's not good enough. I'll get a better one when she's old enough that she needs me to look good. Right now she just needs me to be there. That's the only thing I know for sure how to do. Be there. I'm there every morning. I'm going to be there every morning.
Q. Nothing further.
There was a little more after that. Ms. Takacs called Mrs. Petrenko, who testified for fourteen pages, with a lot of (indiscernible) and (witness speaks in Ukrainian), and said, among other things, that my father was "a good boy, a stupid boy sometimes, but good," and that the child was "fat and happy, she eats like a dockworker," and that "the grandmother with the lawyer, if she wants to help, she can come upstairs and I teach her to make the varenyky, and she can bring some down to the baby, this is how you help." The court reporter noted laughter in the courtroom. Mr. Hargis did not cross-examine her.
And then there was the judge.
Judge Harold Ambler ruled from the bench at the end of the day, before he issued the written entry two weeks later, and the transcript has what he said, and I'll give you the end of it.
"Mrs. Severance, I don't doubt your love for this child, and I'm sorry for what's happened in your family. But the law of this state does not permit me to take a child away from a fit parent because somebody else could give her more. That isn't the test. And I've heard nothing today that tells me Mr. Hadek is anything other than a fit parent, and a good deal that tells me he's a better one than a lot of men I see in this courtroom in much more expensive suits. The petition is denied. Mr. Hadek, you'll keep your daughter. And Mr. Hadek—you hold on to that suit. I've got a feeling you'll want it someday."
Then there was one more short exchange, after the ruling, that I almost missed because it was on the last page and the type was crowded at the bottom.
MS. TAKACS: Your Honor, before we adjourn. My client has asked me to state on the record that he would not object to reasonable visitation between the child and Mrs. Severance, on a schedule to be agreed, if Mrs. Severance would like it. He'd like the child to know her grandmother.