Chapter 2
Like a woman possessed, I furiously tapped into the transaction history.
Right at the top of the screen was an outgoing wire transfer, dated yesterday at 5:23 PM.
Three hundred thousand dollars had been transferred to Jessica Grant, who was David's ex-girlfriend.
She was the elusive "first love" he had never quite gotten over, even on our wedding day.
She had moved back from abroad three years ago and had been persistently attempting to reconnect with David behind my back.
It suddenly clicked that the massive year-end bonus and the promises of a new house for our son had been nothing more than an elaborate lie.
He had taken every single cent and wired it to his ex-girlfriend.
What a romantic gesture.
Was he funding her happily-ever-after while draining ours?
In that exact second, the blood in my veins turned to ice.
The aggressive AC in the hospital hallway blasted over me, but I couldn't feel it. The only cold I felt was a freezing, hollow chill seeping straight from my bones.
The doctor barked at me, his patience thinning as I stood there paralyzed, "Focus! We're losing time here. The patient is in grave danger!"
I slowly lifted my head. The tears had dried on my cheeks.
I looked the doctor dead in the eye. My gaze was as calm and dead as stagnant water.
And then, in a voice that was terrifyingly steady, I said, "My apologies, Doctor. As a widow-to-be with a young son and an empty bank account, I simply cannot pay for this. Cancel the surgery."
The doctor froze, completely caught off guard by my response.
He furrowed his brow, his eyes widening behind his wire-rimmed glasses in absolute disbelief.
"Excuse me? What did you just say? Cancel the surgery?"
His voice unconsciously spiked, echoing down the sterile hallway and drawing the judgmental stares of a few nurses passing by.
I didn't flinch. I nodded and repeated myself.
"Yes. Cancel the surgery. We can't afford it."
My voice wasn't loud, but every syllable was sharp and perfectly enunciated, dropping onto the linoleum floor like heavy, frozen stones.
The doctor looked at me like I was either pulling a sick prank or had suffered a total psychological break from the trauma.
He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and persuaded desperately, "Ma'am, please, you need to calm down!
"This isn't a bill for a few hundred dollars! We are talking about a man's life!
"I understand that two hundred thousand dollars is a massive sum to pull together right this second, but you can just put down a partial deposit to get him into the OR! You can figure out the rest later!
"Call your parents! Call your friends! There is always a way to get the money!"
The corners of my mouth twitched, pulling up into a bitter, utterly sarcastic smile.
Why the hell should I be the one scrambling to figure it out for David?
Did I put him in that hospital bed?
Did I completely drain our entire life savings?
"Doctor, I am telling you, we literally do not have the money," I said.
I held my phone up to his face, the banking app perfectly illuminating the pathetic $3.41 balance.
"This is every single cent my family owns."
The doctor stared at the glowing number, his expression completely freezing.
He had likely dealt with thousands of families in crisis, but he had probably never encountered a wife this bluntly, brutally honest.
He stood in silence for a few seconds, desperately trying to compute the situation.
"Well... what about the patient's personal cards?" he pressed, refusing to give up. "He must have a private account, right?"
I let out a laugh.
It was such a dark, hysterical laugh that tears actually pricked the corners of my eyes.
"His personal account?" I echoed, the irony practically dripping from my tongue.
I pulled my phone back, tapped the screen, and shoved the transaction receipt right back into the doctor's face.
"The three hundred thousand dollars that was in his personal account? Yesterday afternoon, he wired every last penny of it to his ex-girlfriend so she could buy a house."
The hallway fell dead silent.
The air itself seemed to completely freeze.
The doctor stared at the massive six-figure transfer, and the name Jessica Grant illuminated on the screen. He was completely, utterly speechless.
He opened his mouth, closed it, and finally let out a defeated sigh.
The nurses who had been whispering and judging me a moment ago now looked at me with a complicated mix of shock, pity, and deep understanding.
The doctor shook his head, struggling for words. "This... this is truly..." He let out a heavy sigh, unable to finish his sentence.
"I see. Well, since you've decided, you need to start preparing for his passing."
Without another word, the doctor turned around and walked back through the heavy ER doors, his posture screaming defeat.
I stood absolutely still in the hallway, feeling like every ounce of life force had been violently sucked out of my body.
A little while later, the double doors pushed open, and David was wheeled out of the ER and transferred directly into the ICU.
He was still completely unconscious. A massive, suffocating oxygen mask was strapped to his face, and thick plastic tubes snaked out from beneath his hospital gown, connecting him to the monitors that beeped a slow, rhythmic warning beside him.
I stood on the other side of the heavy glass window, staring quietly at him.
I was looking at the man I had loved fiercely for ten years and had been married to for seven years.
There was a time when I genuinely believed we were the luckiest, happiest couple on the planet.
He had been so gentle and thoughtful. He built a successful career and always made me feel completely cherished and protected.
I had been stupid enough to believe that our marriage was a bulletproof fairy tale.
But reality had just backhanded me across the face.
A decade of history and seven years as his wife couldn't come close to holding a candle to his precious Jessica.
Three hundred thousand dollars was our entire blueprint for the future. It was the college fund for our son. It was the safety net for our aging parents.
But he handed it over to another woman without blinking an eye.
In that exact moment, whatever love I had left for David completely died.