“My mother is very sick right now, and she does not want any visitors, so please give her some personal space,” Brandon insisted.
Shortly after that conversation, Brandon’s financial contributions to the household vanished completely as well.
First, he failed to pay the monthly electricity bill, then he stopped buying groceries, and eventually, he left the residential rent unpaid.
“My mother is critically ill, so I am covering all her expensive prescription drugs, medical consultations, and lab tests by myself,” Brandon explained anxiously.
Nora agreed to step up and handle all their living expenses, taking on extra client appointments on Sundays, asking her own parents for temporary financial help, and exhausting herself completely. Brandon claimed to have taken a grueling second job to make ends meet, yet he continually arrived home late at night and brought home almost no income.
One evening, while staring at a kitchen table overflowing with overdue notices, Brandon made a shocking demand.
“You need to sell your cosmetology studio immediately,” Brandon declared coldly.
“What did you just say?” Nora asked in utter disbelief.
“If you sell the business, we can use that lump sum to clear our debts and keep my mother alive,” Brandon argued loudly.
Nora glared at him with intense frustration. “I am supporting this entire household on my own back, and you still expect me to give up the only business I built from scratch.”
“Are you honestly telling me that you care more about your small business than my own mother’s survival?” Brandon snapped angrily.
They argued back and forth until their voices grew hoarse, but neither yielded.
Two weeks later, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, Nora returned home early because a client had canceled an appointment. She walked through the front door and found Brandon standing in the living room fully dressed in his black suit.
“My mother passed away last night, and her funeral is scheduled for tomorrow morning, but she made it very clear that she did not want to see you there,” Brandon said flatly.
Nora cried for hours in silence, feeling crushed by the cruel rejection. The following morning, she watched Brandon leave the apartment dressed in deep mourning clothes. She waited twenty minutes before grabbing her car keys and driving straight to Miriam’s house in Upper Arlington.
The residential street was eerily empty without any funeral wreaths, parked visitor cars, or mourning family members in sight.
She walked up the porch steps and rang the doorbell with a trembling hand.
Miriam answered the door wearing comfortable sweatpants and holding a hot mug of coffee in her right hand.
“Nora? What are you doing here out of nowhere?” Miriam asked, looking completely perplexed.
“I drove over here because Brandon told me that you had died last night,” Nora stammered in shock.
Miriam turned pale as paper, and the dreadful truth they were both about to uncover was far worse than a simple misunderstanding.
PART 2
Miriam quickly set her coffee mug down on the entryway table before her shaking hand dropped it to the floor.
“Dead? Did Brandon actually tell you that I passed away?” Miriam asked, her voice cracking with terror.
Nora could barely manage a nod as she stepped inside the house.
They walked slowly into the kitchen, the exact room where years earlier they had shared coffee, family stories, and wedding plans. Now they stood facing each other like two cautious strangers bound together by a deep suspicion.
“He told me that you were severely ill and that you refused to see me because my presence upset you,” Nora explained softly.
Miriam opened her eyes wide in complete astonishment. “He told me the exact opposite story, claiming that you were drowning in toxic debt, that aggressive collectors were chasing you, and that you urgently needed money to stay out of trouble, so I have been making direct bank deposits to him for over a year.”
Nora felt a freezing chill run down her spine. “How much money did you transfer to him?”
Miriam uttered a staggering figure that caused Nora to stop breathing for a long moment.
It was more than enough money to cover several years of the medical treatments Brandon had claimed to be financing….
