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The Halloween Night I Buried My Mother, He Cheated
Novelix
Completed
When my son needed surgery, my husband Ryan said he had no money. My mother borrowed from a loan shark to save her grandson. She couldn't pay it back. They beat her to death. Then I found the luxury receipts. All for his mistress Sarah. And he stole my college tuition, money my mother bled for, and handed it to Sarah. He told me I was "born poor." and didn't need an education. He was wrong. I reported everything. I burned his career to the ground. And I walked into the university that was always meant to be mine.
Chapters (4)
第1章
It was Halloween. Kids pounded on the door outside. "Trick or treat!"
I sat in the dark, holding my mother's urn, and said nothing.
Two months ago, Ryan said he had nothing to spare for our son's surgery. So my mother gave me her life savings.
"Thanks, Mom. I'll pay you back when Ryan gets paid." That's what I said back then.
I never got the chance.
She died. The thugs beat her to death.
Only then did I learn that her “savings” had come from a loan shark.
The kids outside had stopped knocking.
The house was so quiet I could hear the front door unlock.
My son Tyler came home laughing, a pumpkin lantern still in his little hand.
Ryan followed him in. When he saw me, he tossed his jacket over the urn in my arms.
"Still sulking because I wouldn't give you money? Save it. Run me a bath."
I didn't answer. Just slid his jacket off the urn.
Then I saw them.
The receipts fluttered from his pocket and landed face-up at my feet.
Handbags. Diamonds. Even auction necklaces. All for Sarah.
The timing? Exactly his payday. the day he asked my mother to wait just one more.
He claimed he'd spent the salary on client dinners.
My hands shaking, I picked them up and looked him in the eye.
"Explain this, Ryan."
Tyler reacted first. He rolled his eyes. "Mom, Aunt Sarah's sick. Dad's just taking care of her. Why do you always have to make things ugly?"
Ryan didn't blink.
"Knock it off, Lena. You know Sarah's husband saved my life. So what's wrong with me being good to her?"
"I'm tired, so enough drama with your fake urn. Next month, when I get paid, I'll pay your mother back. Happy?"
Tyler nodded in agreement.
"If that's not enough, I'll pick some flowers for Grandma tomorrow, okay? Dad works really hard, Mom, so just stop pushing him."
I looked at them, dry-eyed.
For three days I'd been arranging Mom's funeral. Neither of them had asked where I'd gone.
Neither of them was asking now.
Ryan was already scrolling through his phone. Tyler was fiddling with his pumpkin lantern.
I took my phone and typed to my lawyer:
I need a divorce. And I need you to trace every dollar my husband sent to Sarah Lawson.
Ryan had promised to pay my mother back next payday?
Fine, I'd make sure he did.
...
I threw the stack of receipts on the floor and clutched the urn to my chest. I walked out.
Ryan followed me to the door and shoved a canvas grocery bag into my hands.
"Tyler just got out of the hospital. Pick up some real food, would you? Maybe some ribs."
He pulled out his wallet, then put it back.
"I already went through my paycheck this month. You'll have to figure out the grocery money yourself."
He just stood there, hand out, waiting for me to take the bag.
There was even a little smile on his face.
Somehow, my mind drifted back eight years. Ryan Parker had been a fresh private in the Army, making next to nothing.
Even then, he'd hand me forty or fifty bucks a week without being asked.
Now he was a battalion commander earning ten times what he used to make.
Yet he always had a reason not to give me grocery money anymore.
The cost of living near base was high.
Tyler's school expenses kept going up.
I had to host dinners for my superiors for our future.
He always said that.
But the receipts on the floor were still there.
A designer bag. Expensive jewelry. A necklace from an auction.
Every time Ryan told me there wasn't enough money, there had been enough money for Sarah.
I looked down at the empty bag in my hands and laughed.
"I'm not cooking tonight. You two can feed yourselves."
"Lena, It's Halloween today."
"So?"
Ryan blinked. Then he took a deep breath.
"Are you seriously still upset about the money? Come on, drop it."
Then he stopped. Waiting. For my tears. My begging. Something.
But I didn't answer.
"I've told you I have expenses," he said, slower this time. "Important ones. I can't just throw cash around."
"I'm doing this for our future."
Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a few crumpled bills.
He held them out to me.
"Here. Go get something to celebrate Halloween. Consider it my contribution to the household."
I hugged the urn tighter to my chest.
Then I looked down.
Twenty dollars.
After eight years of marriage.
After my mother had died trying to pay for our son's surgery.
I looked up at him.
"Ryan, I'm divorcing you."
第2章
Ryan stared at me for a second. Then he burst out laughing.
"Lena, do you even hear yourself?"
"Divorce? You?" He shook his head, still laughing. "That's rich."
"Fine, if you don't want to cook, then don't. Just go grab some takeout."
He pulled out more crumpled bills and pressed them into my hand with the twenty.
"There. Forty bucks total. Make it last."
I stood there, staring at the money in my palm.
eight years of marriage. This was only the second time he'd ever given me this much at once.
The first time was Tyler's birth. I hemorrhaged on the delivery table and nearly died.
The hospital called Ryan in and told him to prepare for the worst.
He'd looked shaken. Wrote the check without arguing. Nearly three thousand.
Then he turned around and told the doctor to skip my epidural.
He needed to save the money. For Sarah.
He'd bought her a car that same month. A brand-new Honda Accord.
I only found that out today, from a small notebook fell out of his jacket along with the receipts.
I opened it.
Page after page. His handwriting. Dates. Amounts. Every line ended the same way.
For Sarah.
I let out a short, bitter laugh. When I looked up, he was gone.
Ryan was already inside.
Through the door, I could hear Tyler's voice, sharp and irritated.
"Dad, you shouldn't have given her anything. She only pulls this drama because you let her. You're too soft."
"Honestly? Just divorce her. She's a housewife. Not like Aunt Sarah. Mom never even went to college."
Ryan was quiet for a long time.
Then, slowly, almost gently, he spoke.
"Your mother actually had the chance to go to college."
"Your grandma scraped together the tuition for her. Borrowed from everyone she knew. Relatives, neighbors, friends. Every penny of it."
He paused.
"I took that money and gave it to Sarah."
"Sarah was fragile. She couldn't handle hard work, couldn't handle disappointment. If she couldn't afford school, it would've broken her. "
His voice was soft. Tender, even. Full of old regret.
But not for me.
The words hit me like lightning splitting the sky open.
I looked down at my hands.
Rough. Cracked. Nails chipped down to nothing. The knuckles still swollen from years of winter damage.
And just like that, the memory surfaced.
The summer I got my acceptance letter, my mother had already pulled together every dollar for my tuition.
She'd gone door to door. Borrowed from my uncle, who barely had enough himself. Borrowed from neighbors who owed her old favors.
She swallowed her pride at every doorstep so her daughter could have a future.
The money was kept in a small envelope in our kitchen drawer. She'd counted it twice. It was all there.
Then one morning it wasn't.
Mom and I tore the house apart looking for it.
She nearly collapsed, thinking she'd misplaced it.
She went back to every person she'd borrowed from, begging, apologizing, trying to scrape it together again.
She couldn't.
Ryan held my hands while I cried.
"It's okay, Lena. Listen to me. "He got down on his knees.
"I'm about to get promoted. You don't need college. I'll take care of you. I'll take care of everything. You will never have to worry."
"I'm going to give you a good life. I swear."
So I let it go.
I told myself the money was just gone. Bad luck. A cruel twist of fate.
But my mother carried that guilt for eight years. She believed until the day she died that she'd somehow lost the money herself. That she'd failed me.
She never failed me.
Ryan stole it.
He took every dollar my mother had bled for and handed it to Sarah Lawson, because she was "delicate," because she "couldn't handle struggle."
He gave away the future my mother had broken herself to build for me.
第3章
And to keep Sarah comfortable through school, he pretended to be broke for eight years.
Every dollar of his military pay funneled straight to her. Tuition. Rent. Living expenses. Everything.
While I raised his son, nursed his parents.
While I cooked their meals, washed their clothes.
While I swallowed the quiet contempt, the looks from the other officers' wives, the pity, the whispers.
Because Ryan was a decorated battalion commander with a bright future.
And I was just his uneducated wife. No degree. No career. Nothing to show for myself.
My palm throbbed where my nails had dug in.
I set the grocery bag down on the front step.
Then I got in the car and drove to the base JAG office.
The legal officer looked up when I walked in.
"I need to know the process," I said, "for divorcing a commanding officer. What paperwork do I need?"
...
I drove back from the JAG office. The house was quiet.
Ryan was sitting in the living room, reading something on his tablet.
The warm light from the floor lamp fell across his face. He looked almost the same as the day we married. Tall. Square-shouldered. Handsome.
It reminded me of the photos Sarah posted on Instagram two months ago.
Paris.
She was in front of the Eiffel Tower, hair in soft curls, wearing Italian leather heels that cost more than my monthly groceries.
Glowing. Confident. She didn't look anywhere near thirty-five.
I'd shown Ryan the photos that night, half-joking, half-wistful.
"That must be nice, right? Get an education, and you get to see the world. If I'd gone to college, maybe..."
Ryan smiled and cut me off.
"Come on, Lena. People like us don't get to live like that. We weren't born for it."
"Once Tyler's grown and out of the house, we'll save up. I'll take you somewhere nice. I promise."
That night, I actually let myself picture it.
Ryan and me in Paris. Walking along the river. Sharing a bottle of wine at some little sidewalk cafe.
So I worked harder. Picked up extra cleaning shifts.
Skipped meals to save a few dollars. Put every spare cent toward Tyler's future.
It never crossed my mind that the man behind the camera was my husband.
He'd taken her everywhere. Bought her the heels, the perfume. Told her not to worry about money, just take care of herself.
Gentle. Attentive. Like a devoted husband.
While I stood in our greasy kitchen, scrubbing pots, wondering what Paris looked like.
Ryan looked up when I came in empty-handed, and his eyes went cold.
I could feel the lecture coming.
Before today, I would have apologized. I would have tied on my apron and scrambled to put something together. Made it nice. Made it right.
Not anymore.
I looked away from him and walked straight toward the bedroom.
Behind me, I heard him stand up.
Then the coffee mug hit me.
It hit my forehead. The pain was sharp. Blood was sliding past my eyebrow.
Ryan had his hand still raised. He opened his mouth to yell.
Then he saw my eyes. His hand froze mid-air.
"Lena, what is going on with you?"
His voice dropped. Almost reasonable now. Almost concerned.
"We've been married eight years. If something's bothering you, just say it. You're upsetting everyone."
He didn't even know what I was angry about.
I almost laughed.
"I've told you what I want. A divorce."
Ryan's face flushed red.
"Here we go again. Stop using divorce as a threat, Lena. We both know you've got nothing. You can't possibly afford to leave me."
He was right. I had nothing.
My wedding gift from my mother. Every dollar I earned from cleaning shifts, odd jobs...
All of it had gone to Ryan and Tyler.
And from them, to Sarah.
I laughed. Cold.
"All these years, you haven't given me a hundred dollars. And Sarah? You know how much your mistress got. How dare you say I couldn't afford to leave you?"
第4章
Ryan froze.
Tyler came storming out of his room.
"That's enough, Mom! You've gone too far!"
He was pointing at me. His face was twisted with rage.
"Aunt Sarah is a good person. There's nothing going on between her and Dad. I won't let you talk about her like that!"
He didn't see the tears on my face.
He didn't see the blood running down my forehead.
All he saw was his mother insulting the woman he adored.
And just like that, a memory hit me so hard I couldn't breathe.
Tyler at two years old. Toddling across the kitchen floor, arms stretched wide, crashing into my legs.
His little voice, soft and clumsy.
"Mommy, I love you."
And then my mother.
The last time I saw her alive. Her hands shaking as she pulled a thin roll of bills from under her mattress and pressed them into my palm.
"Tyler's still growing. Buy him some extra meats. He needs the protein."
The grief ripped through me like a wave.
My voice was shaking.
"Your Dad—" My voice cracked. "He gave everything to Sarah. Everything. And when you were sick, when you needed surgery... he wouldn't pay. He wouldn't pay for his own son!"
"It was your grandma who borrowed from a loan shark to save you! And when she couldn't pay it back, they beat her to death!"
I pointed at the urn. Barely standing.
"Look. She's right here! Your grandma is right here!"
Tyler froze. His eyes widened.
For one second, just one, something flickered in his eyes.
Then it was gone.
He looked back at me with a smirk.
"Wow, Mom. Wonderful. Is this your Halloween trick?"
"That's low. Faking your own mother's death just to get money out of Dad?"
He shook his head. "You should be ashamed of yourself."
Ryan straightened up. The guilt was gone.
He pulled two fifties from his wallet and tossed them at my feet.
"There. That's what this is about, right? Take it. And drop it for good."
He didn't look at me again.
He turned to Tyler. Hand on his shoulder. Walked him to the couch. Murmuring something low.
I stood there, blood drying on my temple, and watched them settle in together.
Father and son. A perfect picture.
I smiled. It tasted like ash.
For eight years, I stayed home. Cooking. Cleaning. Raising our family alone. Aging twenty years in eight.
And Sarah lived in the city. Hair done. Nails done. Dating. Traveling. Looking like she was twenty-five.
Every bit of suffering I endured turned into comfort for her.
So what did that make me?
Was I supposed to just accept it? Accept this as my life?
No.
I couldn't.
"This isn't over, Ryan. You don't get to make this go away."
I took Ryan's hundred dollars and checked into a motel off base.
The next morning, I drove straight to the police station.
I walked up to the front desk.
"I need to report a fraud. Someone stole my college tuition and gave it to someone else. "
...
When I walked out of the police station, I felt lighter than I had in years.
But the moment I stepped into the yard, my neighbor Linda rushed over.
"Tyler collapsed! Ryan just took him to the hospital. You need to go, now!"
My stomach dropped. I turned and ran.
My heart pounded like a drum. Distracted, I missed the bottom step.
My ankle twisted.
Heat first. Then the pain came like a white-hot blade up my leg.
But I didn’t have time to deal with it. My son was waiting for me.
I dragged that leg the whole way to the base hospital.
Thank God, finally, I made it to Tyler’s room.
I pushed the door open at once, desperate to check on him. Then the sight hit me.
He was sitting up in bed, legs crossed, scrolling through his phone.
Safe. Healthy. Perfectly fine.
The moment he glanced at me, he scowled.
"Took you long enough. Where were you last night? You didn't come home."
He set the phone down and looked me up and down.
"Seriously, Mom. Your one job is to take care of Dad and me. What's the point of running away? Where would you even go?"
"Now go get me some soup. The good chicken broth from that place on Fifth. And don't cheap out."
I stood in the doorway, both legs still weak, and understood.
This was a setup.
