My Husband Said He'd Die Before Being a Burden
What is this crap, Audra? Rabbit food?
Walter’s fork scraped against the porcelain plate, a sound like a nail on a coffin.
He shoved the grilled chicken and quinoa salad away with a look of utter disgust.
Our son, Dylan, sitting across from him, mirrored the expression perfectly.
He pushed his own plate back, the untouched food a silent accusation.
"Seriously, Mom. I have a long shift tomorrow. I need actual food, not… this."
The centerpiece of their contempt, however, wasn't the healthy dinner I had spent an hour preparing.
It was the bottle of supplements I’d placed by Walter’s plate.
Veridian Prime.
The label gleamed under the dining room light, a promise of vitality in a sleek, green bottle.
A promise I had bought into.
For him.
"I found out about your physical, Walter," I said, my voice dangerously calm.
His head snapped up.
Shock, then a flicker of fear, then pure, unadulterated rage.
"You went through my things?"
"The results were on your desk. A minor stroke. They called it a warning shot."
I was afraid the stress would make it worse, so I hadn't told him.
Instead, I bought the supplements, the ones Brenda from my yoga class swore had cured her husband's sciatica.
I bought the healthy cookbooks.
I was trying to save him.
But they saw it as an attack.
Dylan picked up the bottle, turning it over in his hands. He pulled out his phone, his thumb a blur across the screen.
"Mom, you didn't," he groaned, a theatrical sound of despair. "I just Googled this. It's a pyramid scheme. People who get strokes take blood thinners, not this overpriced snake oil."
I flinched.
I’d forgotten to peel off the price tag.
Seventy-eight dollars a bottle.
Walter’s eyes locked onto the price, and his face turned a mottled shade of red.
He slammed his fist on the table, the silverware jumping in protest.
"How could you be so selfish?" he roared, pointing a trembling finger at me. "You’ve been a housewife your whole damn life, living off my sweat. You've had it easy. And now, when we should be saving for Dylan’s wedding, you get yourself a rich person's disease and start throwing my money away on this garbage?"
The words hit me like a physical blow.
A housewife. Had it easy.
"Now you listen to me," he snarled, his voice dropping to a menacing hiss. "You take this crap back tomorrow and get a full refund. You do that, or we're getting a divorce."
I stared at him, my husband of over twenty years, the man I had built a life with.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
It was Dylan who delivered the final, crushing blow.
He pulled a debit card from his wallet and threw it on the table.
It skidded across the wood and stopped in front of me.
My debit card.
The one holding the money from the sale of my mother’s bungalow in Florida.
The money she had told me to keep for myself, my safety net for old age.
My inheritance, which I had just offered to Dylan for a down payment on a house with his fiancée, Brielle.
"Having me? That was your choice," Dylan said, his voice dripping with a cold, rehearsed logic. "Raising me? That was your legal obligation. But setting me up for success, truly *investing* in my future? That’s how you earn gratitude."
He gestured at my untouched plate, at the bottle of Veridian Prime.
"And right now," he continued, his eyes devoid of any warmth, "all you're doing is cashing out your own retirement fund at my expense. Take this back. Use it for your… condition. Whatever you can afford is what you get. But don't you dare ask me for a single cent."
That night, my husband and my son packed a suitcase for me.
They worked together, a silent, efficient team, as if they were taking out the trash.
They were terrified I would become a burden.
A millstone around their necks.
As I stood on the porch, the front door closing behind me with a definitive click, I heard Brielle’s voice from inside.
"You can't just throw her out! It's the middle of the night! She’s sick!"
"You don't get it, Brielle," Dylan's voice, muffled but clear. "A stroke isn't just 'sick.' It's years of drooling, of diapers, of the whole house smelling like death. The old guy down the street, Mr. Henderson? He lingered for eight years. Eight. His kids' lives were ruined."
He paused, his tone softening into something manipulative.
"I'm doing this for *us*. I won't let my future wife walk into that nightmare."
The cold of the night air seeped into my bones, but it was nothing compared to the ice forming around my heart.
This was my family.
The men I had given everything to.
I turned away from the house, from the life that had just been erased.
A thought, cold and sharp as a shard of glass, pierced through my shock.
What if it had been Walter? What if the sick one was him?
He'd answered that question himself just last week, puffed up with self-righteous pride after visiting his sick colleague.
"If that were me," he'd declared, "I'd find a quiet place and end it. I would never be a burden to my son. That's what a real parent does."
A bitter laugh escaped my lips.
Alright, Walter.
Let’s hope you’re a man of your word.
§02
Headlights swept across the lawn, pinning me in their glare.
Brielle’s car.
She jumped out before the engine was even off, rushing towards me.
"Audra! Wait!"
Her face was a mess of confusion and distress.
"I can't believe they did this. I am so, so sorry."
She reached for my suitcase, her small frame straining under its weight.
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