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

“Ethan’s been seeing her nearly every week. He said she needed support. And that she was scared.

For as long as I’ve been married, Gail has lived a town away but hasn’t wanted to reach out… I don’t understand —” My voice cracked before I finished the sentence. “Are you sure he wasn’t talking about someone else?” the old woman asked, touching my arm gently. “Like an aunt or someone?”

“No,” I whispered, my stomach doing somersaults.

“Ethan said that it was his mother. He said she was here.”

And just like that, something shifted inside me, a tight, cold knot that began to form at the base of my spine and slowly curled its way upward. I muttered a quick goodbye and walked back to the house, but my hands were trembling so badly I nearly dropped the groceries.

Something was not right, and the deeper I thought about it, the more certain I became that something was terribly wrong. That night, over dinner, I studied Ethan carefully. He looked tired, yes, but not in the way of someone who had spent hours in a hospital chair, watching IV lines drip into his mother’s veins.

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