The third time Ethan Holt burst through the door to catch me slept with a strange, I didn’t scramble to pull on my clothes or fumble for excuses the way I had the first two times. His company’s attorney, Vivienne Walsh, stood at the front of the group. “Ms. Calloway, this is the third instance of marital infidelity.” “Per the prenuptial agreement, you will leave this marriage with nothing, and you forfeit all custodial rights to the child.” Ethan had long since run out of patience. The look in his eyes when they landed on me was pure contempt. He threw the divorce papers down in front of me: “The first time, you said you didn’t even know the man.” “The second time, you said you had no idea how you ended up at that hotel.” “Third time’s the charm — so what’s your excuse this time?” He assumed I’d pull out another pathetic story. But I said nothing. I simply picked up the pen and signed my name on the divorce papers. Then I disappeared from his world. Only — why was it that the moment I finally gave him what he wanted, agreed to walk away with nothing and give up our child, he lost his mind? …… Vivienne immediately snatched the signed papers from the table. As though terrified I might change my mind, she turned to Ethan and said, “Mr. Holt, it’s signed.” Ethan stared at me, his brow deeply furrowed. Most likely because he hadn’t gotten what he’d expected the way he had the previous two times — me ripping up the divorce papers, then pressing my forehead to the floor until it bled, sobbing as I begged him: “For the sake of our child, please believe me just this once!” …… I capped the pen and set it back on the table. “I’ll clear out my things as soon as possible. As for visitation rights for the child —” “You have no right to call yourself a mother.” His voice was low and heavy as he cut me off. “You’re never to see the child again.” I didn’t look up. I only smiled faintly. “That’s exactly what I was going to say — I don’t want visitation rights either!” The coldness in Ethan’s eyes didn’t waver. He just looked at me a moment longer. As though he couldn’t quite read my sudden decisiveness. For the past four years, he and our child had been my entire world. I used to be upset for half a day whenever the little one called out “Auntie Viv” one too many times. And now I was letting go without a second glance. That wasn’t like me. “Shameless,” he said with a cold laugh, as though he’d finally found a reasonable explanation for my change of behavior. “You’d throw away your own flesh and blood for some man on the outside.” “Then what would you call what you did — going out of your way to get into my bed and getting pregnant to trap me?” I listened to him and felt not even the faintest urge to defend myself. The first time he’d caught me “in bed with someone” at a hotel, I’d been completely blindsided. I had begged him to listen, insisting I had done nothing to betray him. He had always been certain I couldn’t live without him. And because the man supposedly caught with me had long since fled — leaving only a blurry shadow on the hotel security footage — Ethan had grudgingly believed me. But he’d still taken our son from my side. Monthly visits had to be scheduled a week in advance through Vivienne. When I came to see him, she followed me around the entire time as a so-called “escort.” Even holding him a little longer required reading her mood. Every toy, every outfit I bought for the child had to be cleared with Vivienne first. Otherwise it would never reach him. The ordeal wrecked me mentally, and then came the accusations of a second affair. At the time, I’d taken a job to keep myself occupied. But on a business trip one day I somehow ended up at a hotel, dizzy and disoriented. When I woke, a heavyset man was lying beside me, snoring and drooling in my direction. I called the police. A female officer examined me and said I hadn’t been assaulted. The facts were right there, but Ethan still refused to believe I’d simply been set up before I could “commit the crime.” After that, I wasn’t even allowed to attend parent-teacher nights at the kindergarten. Whenever the school had something, Ethan sent Vivienne instead. He told me to stay home and “stop embarrassing everyone.” When our son pointed at me and called me a “bad woman,” Ethan stood right there and said nothing. And then came the third time I was “caught”… I was done playing this game. I was setting them free. And now he had the nerve to ask me why I was giving up even my own child?
Vivienne stepped quickly to Ethan’s side and lowered her voice to remind him: “Mr. Holt, even though the agreement stipulates she gives up custody… in all my years of practice, I’ve never once seen a mother give up her child this easily.” “Given that Ms. Calloway has had multiple affairs, she probably planned this all along — after all, a child would be inconvenient… There’s no point trying to talk her out of it.” She glanced up at me as she finished speaking, a flicker of something heavy passing through her eyes. I let out a short laugh. She seemed to have forgotten… Four years ago, this absurd prenuptial agreement — with its precisely predetermined number of “permitted affairs” — had been drafted by her. Ethan’s expression dropped another degree. “You’d better mean what you say. Don’t come crawling back to me later.” He left those words behind and turned to walk out. I watched his retreating figure and felt the corner of my mouth twitch. I won’t, Ethan. Back then, just to convince myself to accept you, I went to every tarot reader and psychic in the city. Every answer they gave me warned against us. Later, I flew five thousand miles to the old chapel in Florence, kneeling there for an entire day and night before I finally found the words I wanted to believe: Some loves are written by fate—never question where they come from. Who could have known that a heaven-ordained match would end up a cursed one. This time, my knees will not bend again. Vivienne looked at me, the faintest smile curling the corner of her lips. “Ms. Calloway, every second is precious — we won’t keep you any longer.” The moment the door shut, the room fell quiet again. I glanced down at the man still passed out on the bed. My stomach turned with revulsion. I had woken before him. I could have left without waiting for them to arrive. But I was tired of this cat-and-mouse game. So I’d waited. I put on my coat and walked out without looking back. The following evening I returned to collect my things. When I pushed open the master bedroom door, I found everything I’d ever used or worn was gone. The housekeeper shifted awkwardly, unable to meet my eyes: “Ma’am, your things were all moved to the storage room… Miss Walsh said the master bedroom… is about to have a new mistress, and it needed to be cleared out right away.” I smiled slightly. Four years of marriage, and I wasn’t even entitled to a proper goodbye. I turned and walked toward the storage room at the back of the property. When I pushed the door open, boxes were stacked on boxes, bags piled on bags. I crouched down and began sorting through them, piece by piece. Nothing else mattered. I needed to find my mother’s vintage brooch. It was an heirloom — passed from my grandmother to my mother, and from my mother to me… It was the only thing in this house that truly belonged to me. I finally found it at the very bottom of the last box. I clutched it in my palm and let out a long, slow breath. I was just gathering a few pieces of clothing to take when a small voice came from the doorway: “What are you doing?” I turned. Little Oliver Holt stood in the doorway, his small figure blocking the exit. He looked exactly like Ethan — but that imperious, top-down posture was pure Vivienne Walsh. “Taking my things.” I kept my head down and continued sorting. Any other time, even when he was being difficult, I would have gone to him with hugs and kisses. But this time, I was completely calm. “Those aren’t your things.” Seeing that I was ignoring him, he walked in. He stepped squarely on the clothes I’d scattered across the floor. “Auntie Viv said everything in this house belongs to Daddy. You can’t take a single thing.”
I paused what I was doing. “This is my own property.” “The money you spent was Daddy’s.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Daddy’s money belongs to the Holt family. The Holt family’s things have nothing to do with outsiders.” Outsiders? I lifted my head and looked at him. A four-year-old boy standing before me, looking at me the way you’d look at a thief. The coldness in those little eyes ran even deeper than Ethan’s. “I’m only taking one thing.” I tightened my fingers around the brooch and stood up. “Everything else, I’ll leave.” “No.” He moved to block the doorway in a single step, stretching both arms wide. “You can’t steal things from the Holt family.” “Oliver, move.” “No!” He raised his voice. “You’re a beggar! A thieving beggar! Auntie Viv said once you’re gone you can’t come back, and if you come back it means you’re stealing!” My temples throbbed. “I’m going to say this one more time. Move.” “No! Put it down!” He lunged at me and grabbed at the small velvet pouch in my hand. I instinctively pulled back. The pouch was ripped open in an instant. The brooch slipped free and hit the floor, shattering into pieces. I stood there, frozen, and heard my mother’s voice from the day she’d pinned it on me. She had said: “Hannah, this piece has been passed down through six generations of our family. One day you’ll pass it to your daughter, and if there’s no daughter, then a daughter-in-law…” I had no daughter. I had no daughter-in-law. I had only this brooch. Six generations. And here, in my generation, it was shattered by my own son. Oliver stood nearby and muttered under his breath: “Who told you not to let go…” I looked at him through burning eyes. “I told you — this was left to me by my grandmother.” “Do you even know why your grandmother is lying in that care home?” Oliver blinked and took a step back: “I don’t know any grandmother. All I know is some money-burning old woman…”
The blood rushed to my head. “Auntie Viv said so — she said that old woman has such a nice room, and she costs Daddy so much money, and she never gets better, so she’s just burning through it—” “Say that again.” My voice had changed. Even I couldn’t recognize it as my own. Oliver was startled by the look on my face. He bit his lip, then summoned his nerve and repeated himself: “She’s just a money-burning old woman, so what — ah!” I shoved him. He tripped over his own feet and landed hard on the floor. He blinked once, then burst into wailing sobs. “Daddy! Daddy!” I stood where I was, my palms numb. Watching my son kick and flail on the floor, that phrase “money-burning old woman” echoed and echoed in my ears. That “money-burning old woman” was my mother. His grandmother. The woman who had dragged herself out of a hospital bed, still healing from surgery, to hand-stitch him a little cotton jacket the month he was born. The woman who called from the care home every year on his birthday, asking the nurses to help her say “Happy Birthday, Oliver, darling.” And he called her a “money-burning old woman.” The sharp edges of the broken brooch cut into my palm. The pain cleared my head a little. Ethan burst through the door, took one look at his son sobbing on the floor, and scooped him up. “Oliver, what happened?” Oliver threw himself into his father’s arms, crying so hard he could barely breathe. “Daddy, she pushed me — make her leave, I want Auntie Viv…” Ethan held him and looked up at me. His eyes held nothing but icy displeasure. “Hannah, are you out of your mind? You hit the child!” “I didn’t hit him.” My voice was very quiet. “I pushed him.” “Is there a difference?” I looked down at the shattered brooch in my hand. “Yes,” I said. “Hitting him would have been a mother disciplining her child. Pushing him — he had it coming.”
Ethan faltered. He looked down at the son in his arms. Oliver, nestled against his father’s chest, had quieted his crying to a murmur. “I was only telling the truth… Auntie Viv said that old woman is just burning through Daddy’s money…” Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why are you arguing with a child?” He glanced at me with a sweep of his eyes. “Vivienne is helping manage the household finances right now — she was simply stating a factual observation from a financial perspective, and the child overheard it. Don’t blow this out of proportion.” “You know how much she does for this family. You’ve always known.” He glanced at the brooch broken into pieces in my hand. Something in him softened slightly after all: “I brought the child over today on purpose — so the two of you could have a proper talk. But that matter — don’t tell him about it for now. It won’t do his development any good.” I knew he meant the divorce. I said nothing. Talk? Talk about what? In four years of marriage, the amount of time he and our son had spoken to me combined didn’t add up to half the time he spent talking to Vivienne. And yet it was he who’d pursued me back in university, step by step drawing me in. Getting me to travel to churches and tarot readers and mediums all over, searching desperately for a sign, not giving up until at last one fortune-teller and one reading gave me the answer I’d hoped for… Even without that so-called “accidental pregnancy,” I had already gathered my courage and was ready to set aside the difference in our families’ status to say yes to being with him. Looking back now — it’s just as well I never said it out loud. My mother was still in that care home, waiting for me to come visit. With those thoughts, I picked up my bag and walked out of the storage room. In the living room, Vivienne was crouched in front of Oliver, coaxing him softly. I walked past them without expression. Behind me, Oliver let out a wail: “Why isn’t that bad woman paying attention to me!” He stamped his feet, overcome with a sense of grievance. He was used to me running to soothe him after every tantrum, red-eyed and apologetic. Used to me saying “Oliver don’t be mad, Mama was wrong.” So when I didn’t even glance at him, he felt wronged beyond all measure. Ethan said nothing, but the coldness in his gaze hit my back like a blade. I didn’t stop. I was just reaching to open the front door when his voice exploded behind me: “Stop right there!”
I stopped. “Come here and apologize to Oliver.” His voice was low and suppressed. “You pushed him earlier and frightened him.” I hesitated for a moment. Thinking this might be the last time we saw each other, I felt no energy left to argue. I walked over and crouched down. “I’m sorry.” I looked into his eyes one last, genuine time. “Mama shouldn’t have pushed you.” Oliver sniffled, and then spat directly at my face. A glob of saliva landed on my cheek and slid slowly downward. In his babyish little voice, he said: “Disgusting woman. You deserve it.” Ethan only watched with cold eyes, adding in a mild tone: “You’ve been carrying on with other men, and even your own child can’t stand to look at you.” I slowly raised my hand and wiped my face. Then I laughed. “I’ve been carrying on with other men?” These so-called affairs, these supposedly caught-in-the-act moments — staged so clumsily — had he truly never seen the cracks? Perhaps he had. Perhaps he just didn’t want to expose it. If he was certain that’s what it was, then so be it. “For four years, you and she have been inseparable — four full years! You even had my child raised in her home. Ethan, who exactly has been carrying on with whom?” “Since we’re already divorcing, can you at least stop lying to yourself?” Vivienne’s face went pale. Her eyes immediately reddened. “Ms. Calloway, how can you slander me like that? Mr. Holt, I…” “Hannah, four years of this — haven’t you had enough?” Ethan’s gaze bore down on me. “Fine, if you think there’s something between us —” he took one step toward me, then another, “— then let me show you what truly improper looks like.” He had the nanny take Oliver away, then grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the bedroom. The moment the door shut, he bound my wrists with his necktie and threw me to the floor. Then he turned, pulled Vivienne toward him, and bent close to her ear. “Do you want this?”
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