In the dead of night, the children's hospital blazed with light, but the air held a cold that seeped into the bones.

After the examination, the doctor said we were lucky—just a minor scald, not too large an area. With ointment and proper care, there’d be no scar.

Holding Yoyo in my arms, the knot of anxiety in my chest finally loosened, just a little.

Jason trailed behind me like a scolded child, his voice a broken record. "Honey, I'm sorry, I really didn’t mean to. I'm just exhausted, I wasn't thinking straight…"

I said nothing. I didn’t even look at him.

By the time we got home, it was already three in the morning.

After the ointment was applied, Yoyo finally sank into sleep. I stayed by her crib, awake through the long, silent hours.

Just before dawn, Jason’s phone buzzed once in the living room—a text.

Almost against my will, I walked out.

The phone wasn’t locked. The screen glowed with his chat to Angela.

The latest message, from Angela, read: "Jason, did your wife give you a hard time again? Ugh, it's all my fault. I’m causing you trouble."

Jason had replied: "It's fine. Just postpartum stuff. She’ll be better in a couple of days."

My finger slid upward, driven by a dread I couldn’t name.

What I saw was a flood of messages: Angela’s various "emergencies," each met with Jason’s "on my way."

My heart sank lower and lower, until I reached their chat from yesterday afternoon—before I had threatened divorce.

Angela: "Jason, is your wife giving you trouble again? Does she not want you to help me?"

Jason: "Ignore her. She's just being dramatic."

Angela: "Don’t say that about your wife. Women are like that after giving birth. But if she keeps making a fuss, it’s not going to work. Maybe… you should teach her a lesson? Let her see how hard it is to take care of a baby. Then she won’t cling to you so much."

Jason: "What kind of--"

What followed was a voice message—one that sent me plunging into an icy abyss.

Hands trembling, I tapped to play it.

Angela’s saccharine voice oozed from the speaker, laced with malice. "Oh, I’m just joking! Like… accidentally knocking over a cup of hot water, letting the baby get a little scald. Once she panics, she won’t have time to bother you anymore, right?"

My breath caught.

In that instant, all the blood in my body seemed to freeze.

I stared at the screen, fingers frantically scrolling, heart hammering against my ribs. I prayed, desperately, that it wouldn’t be what I thought.

But reality shattered my last shred of hope.

Below that voice message, Jason’s reply was clear as day.

A single word.

"Okay."

With a deafening crash inside me, my last thread of restraint snapped.

That "Okay." was a knife dipped in poison, plunged into my heart and twisted, churning my insides to pulp.

So it wasn’t a slip. It wasn’t an accident.

It was deliberate. A plot.

My husband, following another woman’s suggestion, had used our five-day-old daughter to "teach me a lesson."

A tidal wave of hatred and revulsion rose in my throat, bitter and choking.

Clutching the phone, I staggered back to the bedroom, numb as a zombie.

Jason was fast asleep, snoring softly.

Looking at that face I had once loved, I felt nothing but a hollow, freezing disgust.

I raised the phone and smashed it against his head.

"Ah!" He jolted awake, clutching his bleeding forehead, staring at me in shock and fury. "Jesus, Debra! Have you lost your mind!"

I laughed, tears streaming down my face. "Lost my mind? Jason, I should have lost it a long time ago!" I threw the phone down in front of him. "Look at this! Take a good look! This is your ‘like a sister’! This is your ‘postpartum stuff’!"

He picked up the phone. When he saw the chat, his face turned deathly pale.

In a panic, he grabbed my hand. "Debra, listen, it’s a misunderstanding!"

"A misunderstanding? A joke?" I shook him off, screaming. "Your daughter’s leg is still wrapped in bandages! And you call it a joke? Jason, are you even human? That’s your own flesh and blood!"

"Of course I know she’s my daughter!" he shouted back, face flushed with shame and anger. "I told you it was an accident! Why won’t you believe me? Debra, can’t you stop overreacting? I’ve apologized! What more do you want? Do you have to blow up this family to be happy?"

Blow up this family?

Looking at his self-righteous expression, I suddenly couldn’t laugh anymore.

In that moment, something in me quietly died. A chilling calm settled over my bones.

I looked at him with a coldness I had never shown before. Word by word, I said, "Jason, I want a divorce."

When I said “divorce,” Jason froze, genuinely taken aback by my resolve.

After a stunned silence, impatience and scorn flickered across his face. “This again? Debra, can you grow up? Is it fun to threaten divorce every time we argue?”

“I’m not making empty threats,” I said calmly, a deadening numbness settling in my chest. “I mean it. We’ll file the paperwork tomorrow. Michelle stays with me. And I want everything I brought into this marriage back—every penny. The house, the car, the five hundred thousand. All of it.”

The mention of money stripped the last trace of composure from his face.

He stood, looming over me, his tone thick with derision. “Debra, what gives you the right? Michelle is *my* daughter. The house is in *both* our names. You think you can walk away with everything? Dream on.”

“The house was my pre‑marital asset, and you know it,” I shot back coldly. “As for Michelle… what kind of father do you think you are? Do you even deserve her?”

“Don’t I deserve her?” he snapped, as if I’d stomped on a raw nerve. “I’m the one breaking my back out there to provide for this family! And you? You lie around at home, can’t even take proper care of a child, and you have the nerve to fight me for custody?”

Just as our argument peaked, the doorbell rang.

Jason stormed to answer it, irritation written all over him.

Angela stood on the doorstep, dressed to impress, holding an expensive‑looking fruit basket. Taking in the tense atmosphere, she put on a calculated look of surprise and concern. “Jason? Debra? What’s… what’s going on? Are you two fighting again?”

Without waiting for an invitation, she stepped inside. Her gaze landed on me, carrying a subtle mix of appraisal and smug satisfaction.

“Debra, please don’t be angry with Jason. I heard about what happened yesterday. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t asked him to come over and help me, he wouldn’t have been so exhausted, and he wouldn’t have accidentally scalded the baby. I came specifically today to apologize.”

Her words were polished, every sentence an apology, yet each one poured gasoline on the fire.

*It’s all my fault… asked him to come over and help… he was so exhausted…*

She was reminding me that the root of Jason’s mistake lay with her—and with me, the unreasonable wife.

Jason jumped in immediately, defensive. “It’s not your fault, don’t blame yourself. *She’s* the one who’s being impossible!”

“Jason, don’t say that about Debra!” Angela tugged at his sleeve, her eyes welling up with practiced tears. “Debra just had a baby; she’s exhausted. Debra, I brought you some fruit. Eat up, get your strength back.”

She set the basket on the table, then drifted over as if by accident. Leaning in, she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper only I could hear. “Debra, don’t push your luck. Who do you think you are? If you hadn’t trapped him with a pregnancy, do you really think Jason would have married you?”

My fists clenched.

“A man’s body tells you everything about how he feels,” she added with a light, mocking laugh, her eyes sweeping over me in contempt. “Look at yourself. Fat, ugly, with that hideous scar across your belly. What man would want that? Not like me. I’ll always be young and beautiful.”

She paused, leaning closer until her lips almost brushed my ear, and delivered her most venomous line. “Jason told me he finds you repulsive. If it weren’t for the baby, he wouldn’t touch you with a ten‑foot pole.”

My head snapped up. I stared, my gaze burning.

Her face held nothing but open challenge and the smug posture of a victor.

Across the room, Jason looked at her with tender concern, his voice soft. “Angela, you’re too kind. She doesn’t appreciate it. Let’s just ignore her.”

In that moment, the last thread of my composure snapped.

Summoning every ounce of strength I had left, I raised my hand and slapped her across the face with all my might.

***Crack!***

The sound echoed through the silent living room.

Angela clutched her cheek, staring at me in disbelief.

Jason reacted first. He shoved me away violently, roaring, “Debra, what the hell! How dare you hit her!”

Weak from childbirth, I staggered back, my hip slamming into the corner of the coffee table. A searing, tearing pain shot through the fresh incision on my abdomen.

I gasped, the color draining from my face.

But Jason didn’t spare me a glance. All his attention was on Angela.

Gently cupping her face, his voice laced with worry, he murmured, “Angela, are you okay? Does it hurt? Let me see.”

Tears immediately spilled down her cheeks. She buried her face in his chest, sobbing pitifully. “Jason, I… I just came to apologize… I don’t know why Debra hates me so much… Waaah…”

“I know, I know you didn’t deserve this,” he murmured, holding her close and patting her back as if comforting a priceless treasure. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let you come. Don’t worry, she won’t get away with this.”

He turned, fixing me with a gaze of pure ice and disgust. “Debra,” he said, each word deliberate and cold. “Apologize to Angela.”

Bracing myself against the coffee table, I slowly straightened. The pain in my abdomen and the agony in my chest twisted together, threatening to choke me.

I looked at the man and woman clinging to each other. I looked at my husband in name only, watching how tenderly he comforted another woman, how cruelly he treated the wife who had just given birth to his child via C‑section.

I started to laugh. I laughed until tears streamed down my face.

“Apologize?” I repeated the word, my voice a ragged whisper that didn’t sound like my own. “Jason, you want me to apologize to *her*?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Now.”

“Fine.” I nodded. Then, under their stunned gazes, I grabbed the fruit basket from the table and hurled it onto the floor with all my remaining strength.

Fruit scattered and rolled across the tiles.

“That’s my apology!” I pointed a trembling finger at the door, my voice raw and torn. “Both of you—get out of my house! Now!”