The Divorce That Brought Us Back novel Chapter 178

She had let her guard down too much lately.

Nora worried she might have unconsciously crossed a line or done something wrong.

Maloney was usually brutally straightforward.

But this time, he wasn't saying a word.

He was starting to hate her.

Yet, the moment that tiny seed of doubt sprouted in her mind, Maloney mercilessly crushed it under his heel.

He destroyed her panic the second it surfaced.

Half-asleep that morning, Maloney had completely melted her down with his touch.

All while whispering against her lips, telling her to go back to sleep.

How was she supposed to sleep after that?!

Nora despised morning intimacy to begin with.

Especially when they had to come to the wellness center to deal with Nathan's crisis.

And he still wouldn't let her off the hook.

Maloney seemed to have completely returned to normal.

But the more Nora thought about it, the angrier she got.

From the moment she got out of bed until they arrived at the center, she had completely subjected him to the silent treatment.

And she was still fuming.

Nathan's pathetic wails grew louder and more piercing.

Nora pressed her ear flat against the door to block out the noise.

As her ear made contact with the wood, she suddenly caught the faint sound of tapping.

*Tap-tap-tap, tap, tap-tap, tap, tap, tap...*

Someone was tapping on the door with their fingertips.

From the outside.

It was Maloney.

When the three women had cornered Nathan in the breakroom, Maloney had volunteered to stand guard outside.

With him there, no one else would dare approach. It had to be him.

The tapping continued.

By the third repetition, Nora finally realized there was a specific pattern to the beats.

*Short-short, short-long-short-short, long-long-long, short-short-short-long, short, long-short-long-long, long-long-long, short-short-long.*

It was Morse code.

*I L O V E Y O U.*

Nora listened as Maloney tapped the sequence over and over.

He knew she was sitting right on the other side of the door.

This detail hadn't been in Maloney's script.

Jasmine must have added it herself.

She had told him the truth about why Valery collapsed on the playground on her first day of middle school. It was because neither of her parents had accompanied her for registration or the first day of classes.

They had made Valery go alone and hand her medical files to the teachers herself.

A student's words never carried the same weight as a parent's.

When Valery started elementary school, Mr. and Mrs. Smith had personally spoken with the school administration, thoroughly detailing the risks of her congenital heart defect.

Because of that, the elementary school teachers and students had taken exceptional care of her.

Did six years of normalcy make the parents lower their guard so completely that they couldn't even bother to accompany her on the first day of middle school?

No.

It was because Valery's first day of middle school happened to fall on the exact same day as Nathan's first day of elementary school.

Both parents wanted to be there to witness their precious baby boy's new milestone.

Later, when Valery collapsed, the parents stormed the school, screaming and causing a massive scene. They blamed the teachers, the students, the principal giving the speech, the school's inadequate emergency response—they blamed everyone but their own negligence.

The incident was a massive scandal, leaving a lasting impression even on a first-grader like Nathan.

"It's not your fault, Nate. You didn't do anything wrong."

Nora gently patted his head. "But you need to clearly see who was loved, who was ignored, and who was hurt."

"You need to know who deserves your anger, who deserves your respect, and who deserves your protection."