Chapter 1

The day the hospital issued the critical condition notice for my husband's own mother, I called him fifteen times before he finally picked up, and even then it was with irritation in his voice.

I was crying as I told him, "Mom's in bad shape, you need to get to the hospital right now."

He thought I meant my mother, and he snapped at me.

"That little bit of diabetes your mom's got, she's been carrying on with it for years now. Nothing's ever actually wrong, is there?"

"And I'm not a doctor. Calling me is pointless. I've got important things to do, so stop bothering me."

I opened the home security camera and saw him sitting there with his brother's widow and their niece, all of them enjoying the air conditioning and eating fruit.

My husband handed her a travel itinerary.

"Here, I pulled three all-nighters to put together this trip plan for you and Hannah."

My heart skipped half a beat.

His own mother was in critical condition at the hospital, I'd called him more than a dozen times, and he wouldn't come for even one trip.

Yet he could stay up three nights straight, carefully putting together a travel plan for his brother's widow and his niece.

Following Mom's will, I didn't tell him. I handled everything for her passing on my own.

Two days later, wanting money to help out the widow, he came to me with his hand out.

In the middle of the argument, he knocked over his own mother's urn.

1

That afternoon the surgery lights went dark, and the doctor told me, with regret in his voice,

"I'm sorry, Miss Henson. We did everything we could."

I didn't tell my husband. I handled everything for Mom's passing on my own.

Two days later, on the day of the cremation, he called to challenge me.

"Geraldine Henson, what's the matter with you? You didn't even pay the electric bill, and now the power's out. In this heat, are you trying to cook me alive?"

Ever since his older brother died, Nigel Gilbert had been like a different person.

He started paying special attention to the widow.

Feeling especially sorry for her and her daughter.

He could stay up night after night making travel plans for her.

For his niece's spot at a good school, he ran around every day asking people for favors, and burned through half a year's worth of his writing income.

He could even drink until he gave himself a perforated ulcer to get something done for her, without a single complaint.

For her, he sweated every detail and gave everything he had.

But the things at home, he never once asked about.

Even paying the utility bills, which took a few taps on his phone, he couldn't be bothered to lift a finger.

What made it even more hopeless was that my mother and his mother were hospitalized at the same time, and I was one person running back and forth, stretched impossibly thin.

But every time I called him, he said he was busy with his writing and couldn't spare the attention.

Not until the day of his own mother's critical condition notice did I open the camera at home.

Only then did I understand. His so-called "can't spare the attention" turned out to be him staying up night after night making a travel plan so the widow could go on vacation.

I sat in the lobby of the crematorium.

I glanced at the window in the distance.

I no longer had the strength to argue with him.

"If the bill's overdue, then pay it. I'm not the power company. Calling me is pointless."