My stomach tightened.
“Gambling?”
“We don’t know. Loans. Credit. Judgments. But one thing is clear.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t trying to marry you because he was dying.”
Silence settled between us.
“He was trying to use you. I’d double check your bank accounts and any money he can access as your husband.”
“He was trying to use you.”
I walked into Ben’s hospital room the next morning holding a folder of papers, just like he’d asked.
But I wasn’t alone.
The hospital administrator stepped in behind me.
Two attorneys and a quiet officer from the state medical board followed her.
Ben’s face went pale.
But I wasn’t alone.
“Sweetheart, what is this?”
I set the folder on his tray table and slid it toward him.
“Open it.”
He didn’t move.
So I opened it myself.
Photos of his lab results.
“Sweetheart, what is this?”
“You want to explain any of this, Ben? Or should I?”
The doctor tried to slip out the door, but the officer blocked him gently.
“Dr. Klein,” the hospital administrator said, “you and I have a great deal to discuss.”
Ben sat up straighter than he had in weeks.
The frail, dying groom vanished right in front of me.
“You went through my things?”
“You want to explain any of this, Ben?”
“Some, but now I’m going to look at the rest.”
I reached under the mattress and pulled out the folder.
I opened it to the pages I’d never had time to read.
A one-way plane ticket, departing three days from now.
Only one passenger.
Ben.
I opened it to the pages I’d never had time to read.
Beneath it sat a stack of documents regarding my trust.
Yellow tabs marked every place I was supposed to sign.
A letter from a debt collection attorney listed a total I could barely comprehend.
Final notices.
Court judgments.
Loans he had never told me about.
I looked up at the man I’d loved since I was eight.
A total I could barely comprehend.
“You faked a terminal illness so we could marry in a hurry. You planned to use your position as my spouse to access my trust, steal the money, and disappear.”
“It’s not that simple…”
He reached for my hand.
I pulled it back.
“You wore that ridiculous bow tie, Ben. You said it was the best day of your life. And the whole time, you were counting the days until you could bury me in paperwork and disappear.”
I pulled it back.
“You don’t understand the pressure I was under.”
“You’re right. I don’t. And I never will.”
The attorneys began laying out the annulment papers, the fraud complaint, and the trust freeze.
Ben’s voice sharpened into something I’d never heard in twenty years.
“You’ll regret this.”
“No,” I said, picking up my purse. “I regret the twenty years before it.”
“And I never will.”
I turned and walked out.
