I lost both custody and visitation rights to my child.

It's been five years since my divorce from Lysander.

That day, while working at the kindergarten, I saw him again—the same man who had once stood in court, arguing fiercely against me.

He arrived with a little boy who bore a faint resemblance to me.

Calmly, as if nothing had happened, he said, "The child missed his mother, so I brought him to see you."

Remembering the warning he gave me when we got divorced, I responded to him with the same calm tone. "You've got the wrong person. His mother isn't me."

The next moment, the boy hiding behind him suddenly burst into tears and ran toward me, sobbing and pleading, "Mommy, please don't leave me."

——

"Don't say that," Lysander murmured softly. "Shiloh is your child too. You'll hurt him if you talk like this."

His voice was gentle, his eyes lowered—devoid of the cold indifference that filled his face five years ago.

Even now, I can still hear the words he said back then: "Aliyah, from this moment on, the child has nothing to do with you. If you ever try to see him again, I'll have the police enforce the ruling. You'll never see him for the rest of your life."

And yet here he was, saying the boy missed me, bringing him to see me.

I looked down at the little boy clinging to my leg with tears streaming down his cheeks. Sighing, I asked quietly, "Does Georgette know you brought him here?"

Georgette was once his assistant. Now his wife—the woman legally listed as Shiloh's mother. The same woman he had betrayed our marriage for, the one he'd chosen to protect even if it meant sending me to hell five years ago.

Lysander's lips moved, but no words came out. After a long silence, his eyes widened slightly as if realizing something.

"Aliyah... you—you can talk now?"

Then he quickly corrected himself, flustered. "I mean, you can speak in full sentences?"

I was born with a severe speech disorder. Speaking was painful, I was unable to say a complete sentence for a long time. People around me used to call me "Little Stutter."

Back then, Lysander even bought me a notebook so we could communicate better. He told me, "When you're anxious, just write it down. When you're calm, I'll listen to you—slowly."

But later, when he confessed that he'd fallen for another woman and wanted a divorce, I cried and tried to ask him why.

I barely got one word out before he cut me off impatiently. His expression was cold and tired.

"Aliyah, what's the difference between you and a mute? Do you know how exhausting it is to work all day and still have to wait for you to finish a single sentence?"

“Do you know why I like Georgette?” he said coldly. “Because when I’m with her, I can finally breathe. She listens. She knows how to comfort me when I'm tired. What about you?”

He said those words without the slightest hesitation.

He forgot that he was once the one who said, "Aliyah, no matter what you're like, you'll always be the only one in my heart."

He knew how my speech made me insecure, yet he used it as a weapon to wound me for another woman's sake.

I didn't respond. I gently pried the boy's hands off my leg and said to him coldly, "Take him home. And don't come here again."

Without another glance, I turned toward my office.

Behind me, I heard Shiloh's small voice tremble.

He stared at my retreating back, tears glimmering in his wide eyes, and cried out helplessly, "Mommy, don't go! I want Mommy..."

Hearing the cries behind me, my steps faltered for a moment, but I didn't stop.

I returned to the office.

My friend, Piper, who was sorting through teaching materials, looked up.

"Aliyah, I heard someone came looking for you... Wait—why are you crying?"

Her words made me reach up and touch the corner of my eye. Sure enough, my fingers came away wet.

Before Lysander brought the child, I had convinced myself I'd moved on. I told myself I could pass him on the street one day and greet him like a stranger: "Do you remember me? I used to hold you when you were little."

But the truth was, I hadn't let go at all.

I pressed my lips together and forced the tide of feeling back down. My voice trembled when I said, "Lysander came looking for me with the child."

“What?” The name ignited Piper’s anger like gasoline. “He came to find you? Does he still think he hasn’t hurt you enough? Where is he? I’m going to kill him!”

She yanked open a drawer, grabbed a fruit knife, and made a dramatic dash for the door. However, she stopped as if remembering something, panic flashing across her face. "When they came, there weren't any police with them, right? You didn't go meet the child on your own—this shouldn't count as you contacting him, right? It won't affect anything, will it?"

The day after our divorce, the housekeeper called me in frantic and said Lysander and Georgette had gone out to celebrate their anniversary and the baby at home had a high fever. The nanny had something urgent and couldn’t stay. She asked if I could come. Panic made me rush there by taxi.

At the hospital, while we were having the boy examined, Lysander and Georgette arrived in a hurry—flanked by two policemen. Before I could say anything, Lysander said in a cold voice, "Aliyah, you're violating the ruling by taking the child. I'll apply for enforcement—you'll never see him again."

The child in my arms was burning with a fever. I tried to point that out. However, Lysander snatched the boy from me and handed him to Georgette, looking at me with a chill I hadn't seen in a long time. "Remember this: the child's mother is Georgette. He has nothing to do with you anymore."

The policemen had me removed and carted off to teach me a lesson. I spent three days in detention.

When I was finally released, Piper met me at the gate in tears. She looked at the hollow expression on my face and sobbed, "Aliyah, let's leave this place. Start over somewhere new."

So I left Manhattan and didn't set foot here for five years. I thought that would be enough—that I would never see again the angel who had once given me hope and the demon who had thrown me into hell.

"I won't see him again," I promised emphatically. "Don't worry. We'll never meet."

I believed it—because the patient man who had once been Lysander was gone. I never expected him to show up the next day after work, with the child in tow.

"Aliyah," he said, voice full of something like pleading, "today is the child's birthday. His wish is to have you sit down and eat one meal with him. For his sake, will you consider it?"

There were so many unsaid things behind his eyes; he looked at me with an eagerness I hadn't seen in years. Standing beside him, Shiloh wore the same hopeful look.

Before I could answer, Piper appeared out of nowhere, furious. She lifted a basin and hurled the water straight at Lysander. "You scumbag! What right do you have to come looking for Aliyah? Get out of here! She doesn't want to see you!"

The tall figure of Lysander was quickly soaked through by the water. Beside him, Shiloh remained perfectly dry.

Lysander pressed his thin lips together, his deep gaze locked on me—but he said nothing.

Piper noticed the way he was staring and let out a sharp, mocking laugh.

"What? Are you thinking of what crime you can accuse Aliyah of next? Listen, if you want revenge, come for me. Don't even think of threatening her again."

When Lysander first mentioned divorce, saying he wanted to "give Georgette a home," I refused to sign. I clung to the marriage, unwilling to hand over our child.

Back then, some part of me still believed in him. I thought that once the thrill of Georgette wore off, he'd come back—return to his senses and to the family we built.

But I was far too naïve.

When Piper found out he was not only divorcing me but also fighting for full custody, she lost control.

She stormed into his law firm, found Georgette, and slapped her several times in front of everyone, calling her a homewrecker.

The result?

Lysander and Georgette turned around and sued Piper for intentional injury and defamation.

Lysander was a renowned divorce lawyer.

He knew exactly how to protect himself, how to make sure not a single piece of evidence could be used against him.

Everything I knew about his affair was what he allowed me to know.

When I hired a lawyer to defend Piper, they told me, "If you can show proof of his infidelity, we can counterattack."

But I had nothing.

He was too careful. His phone wallpaper was a family photo of me and the child; all his chat logs with Georgette looked strictly professional.

Whenever they met, there were always others present. I couldn't find a single trace.

In desperation, I knelt before him, crying and begging for Piper's sake. He didn't even flinch. His eyes were as cold as stone as he said, "You only have one choice. Agree to the divorce and give up custody—or I'll make sure Piper pays dearly for what she did."

That threat haunted me for weeks.

I couldn't sleep without medication.

But what I didn't expect was that, on the day of the divorce trial, he'd use those very things against me.

He presented the video of me taking sleeping pills and kneeling before him, sobbing.

He told the court I was emotionally unstable, a stay-at-home mother incapable of raising a child.

I had a severe speech disorder, and under stress, it worsened dramatically.

Standing there on the defendant's stand, I tried to explain, but all I met were puzzled, pitying, and impatient stares.

When I opened my mouth to speak, no sound came out. Only the silent motion of lips and the tremor of fear.

My gaze pleaded with him for mercy. But he looked away, heartless. Then he pulled out the notebook he had once given me—the one he told me to use whenever I couldn't speak.

Holding it up, he struck again while I was speechless. His voice was calm and deliberate. "Aliyah is a mute. This is the notebook we used to communicate. She can't even manage basic speech—how could she possibly be fit to raise a child?"

No one knows how to destroy you better than the person who once loved you most.

He struck precisely where it hurt the most, again and again, without mercy.

And I—I couldn't even utter a word in my own defense.

I wanted to scream I'm not mute! But time ticked away, and no sound left my lips. In the end, I lost completely.

When I walked out of the courtroom with the judgment in my hands, I saw them approaching.

Lysander and Georgette, holding our one-year-old child.

Georgette's face glowed with triumph. She smiled sweetly, her tone gentle and condescending. "Aliyah, don't worry. Leave the child to me. I'll treat him like my own and raise him well with Lysander."