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..."
