Reporters fell over themselves praising the couple.
「Mr. Sanchez, your devotion to Miss Delgado is obvious to everyone. Are we looking at wedding bells?」
「That ring on Miss Delgado's hand is one of a kind in the entire country—it symbolizes eternal love. The wedding ring's already on her finger, so the ceremony can't be far behind, can it?」
One reporter with less sense than the rest asked, 「Mr. Sanchez, there are rumors that your ex-wife still has a five-year-old daughter. Will that affect your wedding plans with Miss Delgado?」
Stanley's face went cold in an instant.
He stepped sideways to shield Brenda, eyes full of open disgust.
「I don't have an ex-wife, and I certainly don't have a daughter.」
「A stupid mistake from when I was young. Nothing more.」
「My only wife is Brenda, and the only child I'll ever claim is the one she's carrying.」
Brenda leaned against his shoulder, her smile equal parts shy and triumphant.
Everything we were, everything we had been—erased in a few sentences.
I didn't cry. My tears had run out outside the emergency room doors.
The urn was pressed to my chest, my palms ice-cold against it.
「Desi, Mommy's taking you home.」
The door wasn't locked.
Stanley had fresh red marks on his skin, his arm around Brenda.
He turned his head and saw me standing in the doorway.
Our eyes met. He let out a quiet, contemptuous scoff.
「You took Brenda's place for all those years. It's time you gave it back.」
「If it weren't for you, I would've married her a long time ago.」
「Sign it.」
A divorce agreement landed at my feet. The terms were spelled out in bold: I would leave with nothing.
「Consider it your punishment for stealing those years of Brenda's life.」
On his neck, still covered in kiss marks, I could see it clearly: just below his collarbone, a patch of unnatural pinkish scarring.
Laser removal.
My eyes traced that scar and something dull scraped hard across my heart, like a blade dragged through flesh.
Three years ago—the day the Alzheimer's diagnosis came back—he had knelt in front of me, his forehead pressed to my knees, shaking like a lost child.
「Glenda, I couldn't remember the way home……」
「What if one day I forget even you?」
So he had my name inked over his collarbone, as close to his heart as the needle could reach, one stroke at a time.
He told me, 「Even if my brain breaks, my body has to remember you.」
He bought a black journal and kept it on the nightstand, filling it page after page.
「I'm scared that one day I won't remember anything. So I put your name where it can't be erased and wrote down everything that happens in this journal. As long as I can see it, I'll remember.」
But the name was gone now.
Burned away by the laser, leaving behind ugly, puckered flesh.
「Brenda didn't like that tattoo.」
He tugged at the collar of his pajamas. 「Your name on my skin looked like a stamp on a slab of meat. Ugly as hell.」
A thick, iron taste rose from the back of my throat.
I swallowed the blood down, picked the divorce agreement off the floor, and signed my name.
「It's signed. Keep everything else. I only want Desiree's things.」
Stanley's brow creased slightly, as though my compliance caught him off guard.
Brenda's gaze drifted to the urn I was shielding against my chest. 「You've always clung to Stanley like a ghost that won't move on, and now you're agreeing this easily? You must be planning something.」
「What's that you're holding?」
She lunged for it.
「Bang——」
The lid flew off. Pale gray ash scattered across the floor, mixed with small fragments of bone that hadn't fully burned.
The air locked in my chest.
「Desi……」
I hit my knees, hands scrambling through the ashes, desperately scooping them back.
