Chapter 8

“If you still don’t believe me, I can have someone retrieve the surveillance footage from that day,” Brock said, already pulling out his phone to call the hotel staff.

I waved him off. “No need. It doesn’t matter.”

“What did you say?”

“I said it’s none of my business how you are with Ivy. You don’t need to explain anything to me, because I don’t care.” I wasn’t deceiving Brock. I’d already printed our divorce settlement before witnessing him enter the hotel with Ivy. I had planned to discuss divorce after our thirteenth anniversary, but plans changed.

Brock stared blankly, stammering, “Maliyah, this is important. You can’t accuse me…”

Brock knew whether he was in the wrong. But seeing my unwillingness to engage and my readiness to leave, he stubbornly grabbed my wrist.

“Maliyah, I know I was wrong. I was on my way…” A flicker of struggle crossed his eyes. “Ivy was fired.”

“Maliyah, you know me. I’ve never begged anyone, not even my parents. But today, I beg you, please give me one last chance.”

“We’re getting divorced,” I said calmly, meeting his pleading gaze. “Brock, I don’t love you anymore.”

I disengaged his weakened hand and left the room.

Outside, a gloomy teenager, Brock’s spitting image, stared at Mr. Bunny in my hands. His eyes reddened.

“My grandmother sewed this,” he said. “I thought I’d lost it.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t an accident, Jamie. You threw it in the trash when you were eight.” Mr. Bunny, hand-sewn by my mother while battling cancer, was a third-birthday gift. As a child, Jamie, afraid of the dark, found comfort in Mr. Bunny, his brave little warrior. Five-year-old Jamie cried, begging for help when cotton leaked from Mr. Bunny’s ears. But eight-year-old Jamie, influenced by Ivy’s recent visit, discarded him. “Foreign boys your age wouldn’t like such a childish doll,” she’d sneered.

I frantically searched nearby garbage plants, sifting through nauseating refuse for an entire afternoon. Finally, I found my mother’s broken creation. Overwhelmed, I slapped Jamie’s bottom and sent him to the corner for ten minutes. He never called me Mom again.

Years later, red-eyed, he looked at the abandoned Mr. Bunny. His voice choked. “Mom, Grandma gave me this. Please… I can’t sleep without him.”