When Alice divorced her husband Mike after ten years of marriage, she expected some tension—but not the pettiness that followed. Mike, bitter and resentful, insisted on taking everything he claimed to have paid for. No item was too small or too trivial: he stripped the house of the children’s beanbags, the toaster, the shower curtain rings, and even unscrewed the door handles before leaving. It was as if, in taking pieces of the home, he could somehow erase the years they had built together. Alice said nothing. She chose silence over spite,

grace over retaliation. Her priority was helping their two young children adjust to their new reality—one where stability mattered more than possessions, and where love was measured not by what you kept, but by what you gave. Three surprisingly peaceful days later, Mike called in a panic. He had replaced the door handles at his mother’s house—the ones he’d taken—with such haste that he didn’t realize they locked automatically from the outside. Moments before a job interview, he stepped into the guest room and shut the door behind him. Now, trapped inside with no phone charger,