My Husband's Cruel Game Killed Me, Now He's Begging My Ghost

After my husband racked up eight hundred grand in debt and jumped to his death.

I booked a hotel room with the creditor myself.

I never expected the man who opened the door to be my husband, Fabian Gilbert, the one who was supposed to be lying in the morgue.

He slapped me across the face, disgust flooding his eyes as he said,

"Lorna Delgado, you really disappoint me."

"I faked my death for one day, and here you are, throwing yourself at another man already."

I hit the floor and spat up a mouthful of black blood.

My best friend, Sherry Vaughn, hung on Fabian's arm.

"Fabian, this is all my fault. I'm the one who told you to fake the bankruptcy and your death."

"I just wanted to play a little joke on Lorna. I never thought she'd fail the test so easily."

The creditor sat on the couch smoking, laughing as he handed Fabian a drink.

"Man, I played my whole part in your little act. Next big deal that comes around, you'd better think of me first."

Grinning, they packed up the video camera, sneering that a gold-digger like me had it coming.

But none of them knew I'd come here today to die with him.

Before I walked through that door, I'd already swallowed a lethal dose of poison.

The moment Fabian took Sherry's hand and walked out of that room, I let out my last breath, unwilling to the end.

Your little joke, and all I had left to pay for it was my life.

Sherry crossed over to me in her heels, dug the toe of her shoe into my stomach, and said with fake concern,

"Lorna, you were in the wrong this time. We're best friends, but even I can't defend you on this one."

"Even if something really had happened to Fabian, you couldn't just go find a replacement the very next day."

"Was Fabian nothing but an ATM to you? Not a shred of feeling?"

I wanted to scream back that I was no gold-digger.

But the dead make no sound.

All I could do was watch Sherry lean against Fabian's shoulder and coo,

"Lorna's probably too scared you won't forgive her, so she doesn't dare get up."

Fabian's face darkened, and he shot me one last look full of disgust.

"It was one slap. Is this really necessary?"

"She just knows I'll go soft on her. Pulls this same trick every time."

"I spoiled her too much before. I should've taught her a lesson a long time ago."

He wrapped an arm around Sherry's waist as if no one else existed, unwilling to spare me even a glance.

"If she wants to play dead, let her."

"Freeze all her cards. Once she's got no money to spend, she'll crawl up and admit she was wrong."

I couldn't accept it. I wanted to face Fabian and make everything clear.

But when my soul drifted to his side, I found him leaning over to buckle Sherry's seatbelt in the passenger seat.

That seat had once been reserved for me, his wife.

But ever since Sherry came to Harborview from back home, the passenger seat had become hers.

At first, Fabian would still explain.

"Sherry gets carsick easily. Let her sit up front."

After enough times, he stopped bothering to explain at all.

Once in a while, when Fabian and I went out alone, I'd just open the passenger door and he'd frown.

"Sherry's a neat freak, and she just put a new cover on that seat. Go sit in the back."

Three of us, and I, the wife in the eyes of the law, was the one who'd become surplus.

As the car started, Sherry laid her hand on Fabian's thigh.

"Lorna really doesn't know how good she has it. Such a wonderful husband and she doesn't even treasure him."

"If I were half as lucky as her, I wouldn't so much as glance at another man."

Fabian said nothing, letting her hand roam over him.

Sherry traced her fingertips along the crease of his slacks, her face turning troubled.

"Even if Lorrie's angry with me, I can't just leave her like that. Shouldn't we go back and check on her?"

"The blood she coughed up earlier was all black. I'd hate for something to really go wrong."

Fabian pressed down on the gas, and the car shot straight for the highway.

"She's actually mad at you?"

"Sherry, you're just too pure, too kindhearted."

"A gold-digger like Lorna Delgado would never have the guts to die."

"Don't even mention her. She's a headache."

I drifted there between the two of them, listening to them cheerfully debate what to have for dinner.

The last thread of longing in my heart finally broke.

Five years.

I gave him the five most precious years of my youth, building everything up from nothing.

And all I got in the end was one word. Gold-digger.

Fabian Gilbert.

Have you forgotten?

When you started out, you were so broke you couldn't even afford to rent a studio.

It was me, the gold-digger you keep talking about.

I sold the gold bracelet my family gave me to help you pay the rent.

It's fine.

You won't be bothered anymore.

Lorna Delgado is dead. There's no one left to stand between you two and get in the way.

They drove straight home.

Seeing Fabian back from the dead, my mother-in-law showed not a flicker of surprise.

Her color was good, her clothes tidy, nothing like the woman from the day before.

She only asked, offhand,

"Where's Lorna? She didn't come back with you?"

Sherry hooked her arm through Beth Gilbert's, all sweet and coaxing.

"It's all my fault, giving such a bad idea."

"Now Lorrie's too embarrassed to come home."

Beth caught Sherry's hand and patted it fondly.

"How is any of this your fault? You were only looking out for Fabian."

"It's that country girl Lorna, loose as she is!"

I drifted behind them, watching them fawn over one another like a real family.

What was there left to not understand?

The grief of losing my husband, the grief that cost me my life.

From beginning to end it was an elaborate show Fabian had staged.

Everyone was an audience. I was the only clown.

My spirit followed them through the front door.

The table was already spread with dishes Beth had prepared.

Fabian ruffled Sherry's hair and said to her, smiling,

"See how much my mom dotes on you."

"Everything on that table is your favorite."

"She knows you can't handle spice, that you don't eat cilantro. Even the side dishes were picked out just for you today."

I drifted by the table, looking at the spread laid out with such care.

I gave a helpless little smile.

Five years married to Fabian, and neither he nor his mother ever once remembered what I liked.

The dish I said I loved never appeared on that table again.

I said I didn't eat scallions, and after that there were scallions in every single meal.

A few times I couldn't help complaining to Fabian.

He only scolded me, impatient.

"My mom's getting on in years, her memory's bad. Can't you show a little understanding?"

"Forget my mom. Even I can't keep track of all your annoying little habits."

But he remembered Sherry couldn't eat spice, remembered Sherry didn't eat cilantro.

The one thing he couldn't remember was that I didn't eat scallions.

Five years through hard times together counted for less than Sherry's three months in Harborview.

While Fabian was peeling shrimp for Sherry, my body was slowly going cold in a hotel suite ten miles away.

"Ma'am? Are you all right? Do you need help?"

The attendant lifted me up, took one look, and was scared out of his wits.

A face white as paper, eyes still open in refusal.

At the corner of my mouth, a trail of blood long since dried.

"Aah! Someone's dead!"

The attendant scrambled out of the room on hands and knees and called the hotel manager at once.

Ten minutes later, a patrol car and an ambulance pulled up together.

The medic didn't even attempt resuscitation, just gave the police his verdict straight.

"Time of death was over half an hour ago. There's no point in trying."

"From the symptoms, she swallowed a lethal dose of chloride poison."

The police found my phone under the couch, and in the contacts they turned up a number saved as Husband.

The call came in while Sherry had Fabian pinned to the bed in our bedroom.

Beneath them were the blue-gray sheets I'd picked out myself.

Our wedding photo still hung on the wall.

An unfamiliar number flashed on the screen, and Sherry snatched the phone up first to answer it.

"Is this the family of Ms. Lorna Delgado?"

"This is the Union Avenue police station."

Before the voice on the other end could finish, she hung up.

Fabian turned his head to look, but Sherry simply added the number to the block list and tossed the phone onto the bed.

"Lorna's just trying to save face for herself."

"God knows where she paid someone to pretend to be the police and call you."

Fabian let out a cold snort.

"She cheapened herself, and she still has the nerve to make me come get her?"

"All these years married, and the one thing she learned is every trick in the book for fooling people."

Sherry suddenly wrapped her arms around Fabian's waist and buried her face against his chest, her voice small and pitiful.

"Fabian, honestly, I've always envied Lorna."

"She got lucky. Good family since she was a kid, a good college, a husband as good as you."

"But me, I've got nothing."

"Fabian, if you can't bear to let her go, just bring Lorna back."

His hand rose, then dropped, and finally settled on Sherry's shoulder.

"Stay here tonight. The minute she crawls back, I'll divorce her."

Sherry looked overwhelmed by his favor, her eyes shining with tears as she gazed at him.

"But what about Lorna?"

"Lorna and I are the best of friends..."

Fabian snorted again, pushing down the strange irritation stirring somewhere inside him.

"Since she likes climbing into other men's beds, she can stay gone for good."

"Isn't it money she loves?"

"Give her a hundred grand. That squares us."

Five years of youth.

More than eighteen hundred days and nights.

He was buying it all out for a hundred grand.

Even though I was already dead.

But in that instant my heart still stalled for a second.

I tugged at the corner of my mouth in a bitter smile.

Congratulations.

No divorce needed. Just widowed.

Not only did he save the hundred grand to buy out the marriage, he even saved the ten dollars for two divorce papers.

A flicker of secret glee crossed Sherry's eyes.

Her hands roamed restlessly over Fabian's body, until he caught them and held them still.

"It's late. Get some sleep first."

"I've still got business at the company to deal with."

Sherry hugged him tight from behind, her voice soft as water.

"But this room is full of Lorna's things everywhere."

"It feels a little awkward, staying here."

Fabian's steps paused.

After a moment, he said it offhandedly.

"Anything you don't like the look of, just throw it out."

"From now on you're the woman of this house."

Sherry's eyes lit up, and she pointed at the row of cabinets by the bed.

"Can these go too?"

Delighted, she dragged out the box I'd hidden at the very back.

"Fabian, these look like stuff you two kept from back when you were dating."

I drifted over to take a look.

The box held nothing but worthless little things.

An instant-ramen wrapper, a faded, warped gold-plated ring, and a thick stack of old green-train ticket stubs.

All of it kept from the days when Fabian and I were dating.

At our hardest, the two of us had only one pack of instant ramen to share.

He drank only the broth and left all the noodles for me.

To save money, every time he traveled for work he took the cheapest slow train and stood for eight hours.

With the money he saved, he bought me my first rose-gold ring.

I wore that ring for years, and even when it faded and warped I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.

After we married, every time I swallowed some hurt, I would take this ring out and slip it on.

I'd tell myself:

those good times had been real, and whatever friction we had now, I only had to endure it and it would pass.

Fabian gave it a single glance, his face blank.

"Throw it all out."

"She's always used this junk to guilt-trip me, going on about all the hardship she suffered for my sake."

"Let's see what she has left to say after this."

With that, he picked up the box and, without a moment's hesitation, hurled it out the window.

I listened to the muffled thud below.

And instead I went completely calm.

So that was it. Those shared-hardship memories were, in my heart, a pardon written in gold, enough to smooth over countless cracks in a marriage.

In his, they were nothing but blackmail, a curse that had chained him down.

The love I had treasured like a jewel.

It had rotted through from the inside long ago.

After Fabian went into the guest bedroom.

Sherry found the suicide note under my pillow.

Once she understood that I'd already taken poison, meaning to die together with the creditor who had driven Fabian to his death.

She froze for a second.

She walked to the door several times, but in the end she folded that note up neat and careful and tucked it inside her own bra.

Sherry sat on the bed for two full hours.

Then she took out her phone, used AI to make a photo of me arm in arm with a Black man, and sent it to Fabian.

"Lorna says she's off on vacation with her new boyfriend, and wants us to wish her well."

"Since that's how it is, let's not wait for her, hmm?"

Fabian saw it and drove his fist through the mirror.

"Lorna Delgado, you've got some nerve!"

"You really thought I'd stay faithful to a slut like you?"

"I'll show you right now. I do just fine without you!"

He was crazed with fury, and right there announced in the family group chat that he'd get engaged to Sherry the next day.

I drifted in the air, and looking at the greenish rims of his eyes, I only felt how pathetic it was.

Even an enemy, hearing a call from the police station, would cooperate with the investigation.

But my husband, the man who'd shared my bed, couldn't even be bothered to confirm with the police whether I was dead.

Early the next morning.

The villa was packed with relatives coming to offer their congratulations.

His mother, Beth, couldn't stop smiling.

She led Sherry around by the hand, introducing her to everyone.

"This is Sherry, my new daughter-in-law."

"Look at that face, born lucky. So much better than that barren hen Lorna Delgado."

In the middle of all the congratulations, the front door was suddenly shoved open.

The creditor who'd once played his part in Fabian's little act came stumbling in.

He looked around the room, then crashed straight into Fabian.

"Fabian... something's happened! Your wife took poison and killed herself yesterday!"

"The cops hauled me in this morning to cooperate with their investigation!"

The creditor looked terrified out of his mind, clutching at Fabian, unable to get the words out straight.

Fabian's face went iron-gray, and he shoved him off.

"Lorna's making trouble, and now you're in on it with her?"

"A gold-digger like her, kill herself? You've got to be joking."

"You go tell Lorna."

"If she really knows she's in the wrong, then she can crawl back here right now, instead of pulling these underhanded stunts!"

With that, he lifted his glass.

Just as he was about to give the toast, a squad of officers pushed through the crowd toward him.

They flashed their badges, then pulled out a fresh autopsy report and slapped it in Fabian's face.

"Fabian Gilbert."

"Your wife, Lorna Delgado, died of poisoning at eleven o'clock last night in Suite 306 of the Grand Marquis Hotel."

"The cause of the suicide is not yet determined."

"You need to cooperate with our investigation immediately."