My MIL Needed Chemotherapy – A Year Later, I Learned Where the Money Really Went

Friends stopped taking him seriously, and even his coworkers kept their distance. He had gone from a man building a future to the kind of person people crossed the street to avoid. And me?

I started fresh. I closed the joint accounts, filed for divorce, and reclaimed my home. The silence in the house is different now — it is mine, no longer clouded by lies.

It was a quiet Sunday morning when the knock came. I opened the door to find a woman standing there — she was petite, silver-haired, and her posture was both tentative and proud. “Kate?” she asked softly.

“I’m Gail. Your neighbor, Mrs. Parker, tracked me down in Arizona and told me what happened.”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak.

She looked nothing like the fragile, scarf-wrapped figure Ethan had paraded through that parking lot, engaged in who-knows-what with a woman playing the part of his dying mother. “I’ve been living there for over a decade,” she continued. “When I moved, I cut Ethan off from all of my accounts.

He was reckless with money, always wanting more. I haven’t heard from him in years. I didn’t even know he was married.

Ethan’s father left this house to him before he passed, so I figured… I’d move from here. And I’d get away from him and his toxicity.”

“He made me believe that you didn’t want anything to do with me,” I said. Tears stung my eyes.

Continue reading…