Chapter 5
David barely managed to get through the morning.
The hospital called, urging him to settle the bill for Anna's stay.
The total was over 10 thousand dollars.
Without a second thought, David pulled up his banking app and got ready to transfer the money straight from our joint account.
That was money we shared as a couple.
There was almost a hundred thousand in there, and most of it was what I had managed to save up over the years.
But as David entered the password and was about to transfer the money, a notification popped up on the screen.
[Account has been frozen by one party. Can't make any transactions.]
David's mind buzzed—he was completely stunned.
Frozen?
How could it be frozen?
David immediately tried calling me.
As expected, he couldn't get through.
David switched to Mary's phone and tried again.
This time, the call connected.
But I hung up after one ring.
Right after, I sent David a text.
[David, I've already applied for a court-ordered freeze on our marital joint account. Until you pay back all the money you've funneled to Anna from our family funds over the years, don't even think about touching a single cent in that account.
[Oh, and so you know, I have records of every single transfer you made to Anna. Everyone is accounted for.
[Didn't you say you'd handle it all? Good luck, big brother.]
David stared at the text, shaking with rage.
Flora was really ruthless; she was cutting off my lifeline; she was trying to ruin me.
Mary saw the worry on David's face and moved closer.
"What's wrong, David? Are we short on money?" she asked.
David gritted his teeth and handed her the phone.
Mary read the message and exploded on the spot.
"That vicious woman, that jinx!" she shouted. "She's trying to drive us into a corner.
"No way. We can't let her get away with this. Let's go raise hell at her office. Let's stir things up at her parents' house, too.
"I refuse to believe nobody can teach her a lesson!"
David's eyes were burning with rage.
Yeah, we couldn't let this go.
David checked his own bank account.
He only had a little under $2,000 left.
It wasn't enough to pay for Anna's treatment, let alone cover next month's mortgage.
We bought this home together.
Our names were on the deed.
Every month, the mortgage was $4,000, and I always covered the bulk of it while David only paid a small part.
But now, I was done.
All the pressure was on him.
David had no money, no job, a sister who couldn't move, and a mother who did nothing but complain.
Despair crashed over David like a tidal wave, drowning him completely.
He collapsed to the floor, feeling for the first time a fear that chilled him to the bone.
It seemed that he had screwed everything up.
At that moment, I was sitting in a fancy restaurant.
Sitting across from me was my newly hired divorce lawyer, the ace Alex Reed.
I had compiled every single bank record of David's transfers to Anna.
It was a thick stack of papers.
"Mr. Reed, do you think this is enough to prove he was transferring marital assets during our marriage?" I asked.
Alex pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses and carefully looked over the thick stack of papers.
He flashed a confident smile.
"Don't worry, Ms. Carter," Alex said. "We've got this case in the bag. He'll walk away empty-handed, and he'll cough up everything he owes you, with interest."
Over the next week, everything changed.
For David and his family, it was a living hell.
For me, it was paradise.
David was let go by his company.
The official reason was unauthorized absences and causing irreversible losses on a critical project.
He walked away with nothing.
At thirty years old, David was suddenly out of a job.
He started frantically sending out resumes, desperate to find work.
But everywhere he turned, he hit a wall.
The industry was tight-knit.
News of his dismissal had already made the rounds.
No one wanted to hire someone who was unreliable and brought his personal mess to work.
Their finances were in shambles.
The mortgage payments were overdue, and the bank was blowing up David's phone, demanding money.
The property management was hounding them for maintenance fees and utility bills, too.
And Anna's rehab? That was going to drain even more money.
It was a black hole, swallowing cash with no end in sight.
Mary dipped into her retirement savings, pulling out tens of thousands of dollars.
But even that barely made a dent in the disaster they were facing.
Mary started calling up relatives and friends, asking to borrow money.
But the moment they heard it was for Anna's treatment, everyone found some excuse to turn her down.
Everyone knew what Anna was like.
She used to spend money like nothing and managed to offend a lot of relatives.
Now that she was in trouble, who'd want to pour their money into that mess?
Mary was desperate for cash, crying and ranting at home when no one would help her out.
She and David were fighting more and more often.
First, they said I was heartless, but now they started blaming each other instead.
"This is all your fault. You never should've spoiled her so much! Now look at us. She's turned into a total burden, wrecking the whole family!" Mary was screaming at David.
"Mom! How can you say that about Anna? She's my sister," David snapped.
"Then why don't you figure out how to get us some money? If we don't have cash, we'll all be sleeping on the street!" Mary yelled.
That was David, lashing out in utter despair.
With their finances in ruins, they couldn't even scrape together enough for takeout anymore.
Mary was forced to take over the kitchen herself.
But her cooking was so awful, even the dog turned up its nose at it.
Anna was stuck in bed all day, her mood getting nastier by the day.
She ordered David and Mary around like she was royalty, barking out commands left and right.
"Water, I want water. Are you two deaf?"
"Flip me over. My back's gonna fall apart!"
"This show sucks. Change the channel!"
If things didn't go Anna's way, she'd scream and cry, throwing wild tantrums, sometimes even banging her head against the wall.
David and Mary were driven to exhaustion, barely holding it together as Anna's endless demands pushed them to the edge.
The whole house was thick with the stench of despair and rot.
They were living in an abyss, drowning in misery.
But me? I was soaring above the clouds.