Wife and Mother Crippled Me to Crown Foster Brother

1: 1

At the national championship, I came into the final turn with my brakes gone, went off the cliff, lost the title, and ended up a vegetable.

When I came to, I could hear my wife talking with her friends.

Marina James, you cut Bryan Rowe's brakes. Weren't you afraid he'd die?

Well, it was to help Peter Sanchez live out his dream of winning.

"Bryan's mother didn't call the police?"

"No! The whole idea was something my mother-in-law signed off on. Even if the truth comes out, she'll write me a letter of understanding."

"Why would Bryan's mother help you?"

"Because Peter is the child of my mother-in-law's first love. She treats him very well!"

"Bryan's really got it rough, huh?"

My wife stroked my cheek gently. "Bryan may be in a coma, but he has me here to keep him company and take care of him. He should be satisfied."

...

The feeling of a knife carving through my heart drowned out the tearing pain in my body.

Never in a thousand years did I imagine that the woman I loved and my own mother had joined hands to turn me into a vegetable.

That championship was the dream I'd chased my whole life, and Marina had ruined my brakes to help Peter, so that when I hit the final S-curve I couldn't stop and went straight off the cliff.

"Marina, I remember Bryan trained day and night for two years straight to win. If you hadn't sabotaged him, that title would've been his!"

"Yeah, I saw him out on the track by himself all the time, running through every kind of drill, rain or shine. Sometimes he'd fall and bleed and still grit his teeth and keep going."

"Marina, isn't this a little much?"

Marina burst out laughing. "This is too much? I'm even thinking of having a baby with Peter!"

"What?"

"The moment I look at Peter, I feel sorry for him. I can't wait to shower him with love. He once joked that he wanted a child with me, and I said yes, laughing."

"But Marina, you and Bryan were together ten years. He asked you again and again to have a baby, and you always turned him down"

"Because I'm afraid of the pain! I even thought about quietly having Peter's baby and letting Bryan raise it. That way I'd get to stay with Bryan and have Peter's child too. How wonderful would that be."

"My mother-in-law has always regretted not having a child with her first love back then, so she fully supports me giving Peter a baby."

The room went quiet. No one picked the thread back up, and before long the talk drifted to other things.

My eyelids kept twitching, but I couldn't force my eyes open.

My wife and my mother had done something this absurd behind my back.

My heart was bleeding raw.

Peter was my foster brother, a few months younger than me. When I was in high school, his father died of an illness and his mother remarried, leaving no one to look after him, so my mother took him into our home.

She favored him plainly. After he moved in, my allowance shrank a lot, while his was several times mine.

Through all three years of high school, my mother threw him three birthday dinners at a restaurant, and I was like something forgotten. I didn't even get a birthday cake.

Thinking of how pitiful his life had been, I chose to swallow it all in silence.

2: 2

After Marina and her friends left, I slipped under again.

I don't know how long it lasted, but the pain in every part of me dragged me back awake.

Then the door creaked open, and footsteps crossed to my bed.

"Bryan..."

"I came to see you, my dear brother. You've been out cold for three days and three nights now."

It was Peter, my foster brother.

Only then did I learn how long I'd been under.

"Thank Marina, and thank your mother, for handing me the championship I've dreamed of."

"Brother, that brake job? I'm the one who begged Marina to do it!"

"I took home fifty million in prize money from this race."

"Didn't you always want to start a racing youth training academy? I'll build it for you!"

"And since I'm still single, Marina promised me a sweet little romance."

"Bryan, all those years of grinding, and you did it all so someone else could wear the wedding dress! Hahaha!"

He burst out laughing, not caring who heard.

Peter had taken my mother's love and my wife, and now he wanted my dream too.

He'd done everything he could to become me.

"Bryan, I hear you're in great physical shape?"

I heard water boiling, then the sound of it being poured.

A second later my blanket was flipped back.

Scalding liquid poured over my legs, hissing where it hit, the smell of burning rising up, and my thighs blazed as if they'd been set on fire. It hurt.

"Brother, you know how much I hate you? My dad got sick and died, and my mom ran off with some man and dumped me."

"But you had both your parents, and they treated you well. Your dad worked away from home and sent you money all the time."

"Your childhood sweetheart, Marina, was always fussing over your studies and your life. She even washed your clothes for you back in high school!"

"I had no one. I had to live off other people's charity!"

He kept talking as he poured the boiling water over my legs.

Blisters swelled up all over the skin.

My mother had been good to him, and he called it living off charity?

"Heh, your wounds are all wet now. If they get infected, those legs are done for."

Peter kept giving that low chuckle.

Both my legs had snapped in the crash. The doctors had set the bones, but the wounds hadn't healed yet and couldn't get wet.

"Bryan, you may be a vegetable now, but one look at this face of yours and I'm furious."

"How about I wash your face for you? With boiling water?"

Hissss...

I heard the boiling water steaming right above my head.

"Peter, what are you doing?"

Just then the door to the room was pushed open, and I heard Marina's voice.

Peter quickly set the kettle down on the table.

"Marina, I just boiled some water and wanted to cool it down for Bryan to drink. I didn't mean to, a little of it dripped onto his legs."

The wounds on my legs couldn't get wet. Marina glanced over and said to Peter, "Peter, you're so thoughtful! If Bryan knew, he'd be grateful. But the doctor said he can't take anything by mouth right now."

"Oh, right, Peter, didn't you say you'd take me to a movie tonight? Let's go."

"Marina..."

"What is it?"

"I, I... I want to kiss you..."

Marina gave a shy little smile. "Didn't you already kiss me last time?"

She walked right over to Peter, and the two of them started kissing, right there at the foot of my bed.

"All right, let's go to the movie... Oh, Peter, you're terrible, still kissing..."

I heard the faint sound of clothing being pulled aside.

"Marina, you've got such a great body..."

Marina spoke in a voice like she was half dreaming. "Peter, don't, don't do this, Bryan's lying right here..."

Peter was breathing hard. "He can't see anything. What's there to be afraid of?"

My eyelids twitched hard.

After a moment, my right eye actually opened a tiny crack.

That was all the strength I had, enough to hold open that thin sliver.

A yard from my bed, I could see them, wrapped around each other, kissing.

Peter's right hand had even slid up inside Marina's top.

Marina's face flushed red.

Rage burned through me at the sight.

"Peter, don't do this..."

3: 3

Marina glanced at me a few times, a flicker of guilt crossing her eyes, and gently pushed Peter away.

"Let's go see a movie"

"Marina, you're so beautiful, I, I want"

Peter pulled her back into his arms.

"Marina, you got me the championship. I want to take things further with you"

"Peter, but this is a hospital room"

"It's fine! The doctor just did his rounds. As long as we don't ring the call button, no nurse is going to come in and bother us. You don't have to worry."

"And you promised you'd have my baby. I'll treat you right"

Marina, all reluctance and no resistance, gave up the last of her hesitation.

Clothes kept dropping to the floor.

Her body was soon bared to the air.

Peter watched, swallowing hard, then pounced on her like a starving dog

I can't describe what I felt.

Rage?

Grief?

Tears welled up past my eyelids and slid down my cheeks.

Marina and I were childhood sweethearts. In our senior year of high school she'd whispered to me that she wanted to be my partner for life.

From middle school on, we used to meet at McDonald's to do homework and memorize our readings.

Back then, if I snuck her hand into mine, she'd blush, and I'd be so happy I'd wake up laughing from my dreams.

The sky was so blue in those days. I thought we'd love each other for a lifetime.

Then, after the SATs, when the acceptance letters came, Marina came to my house and saw Peter standing by the couch. In his pale white shirt, he called out shyly, "Hello, Marina."

For no reason at all, her heart ached for him.

After she learned about Peter's situation from my mother, part of the feelings she'd had for me quietly shifted to him.

Now the two shapes on the floor were tangled together.

Marina was the eager one, and it set my rage burning.

"Marina, you're so beautiful."

"Peter"

After a while, Marina stood up, put her clothes back on, straightened her messy hair, and walked to the bathroom.

"Bryan, bet you didn't see that coming. Your wife, crying underneath me."

"I've got to say, she's got a great body."

"You're useless now. Give it a few more days and I'll have Marina pull your ventilator."

Peter lowered his head and gloated at me in a hushed voice.

His face had twisted, ugly with triumph.

Then he pulled the blanket over me and said with a sneer, "The wounds on your legs got wet. If they aren't dealt with in time, they'll have to amputate."

The two of them walked out.

Would Marina really pull my ventilator?

Half an hour later, my mother came in.

"Bryan, I saw Marina and Peter go off on a date just now. I'm so happy."

"Marina's a good girl. Peter is my first love's child. My first love and I never got to have a child together. That was my regret."

"If the two of them have a baby, that would make my dream come true"

She'd wrecked her own son to this, and felt not a shred of guilt, and when she talked about Marina and Peter going on a date she was actually pleased with herself.

In her eyes, did Dad and I not count as people?

"Oh, right. Now that you're a vegetable, I'm going to put the house in your name under Peter's, so he and Marina can have a home together someday."

"I'll tell your father you earned the house and gave it to Peter, so he won't make a fuss."

The wounds on my legs had gotten wet. They itched unbearably now. They must have been infected and inflamed. I might be facing amputation.

But my mother was lost in her old flame, with no thought of wiping them clean for me.

4: 4

After betrayal upon betrayal from my own family, my heart had gone dead.

The doctor came in on his rounds.

He finished my exams, looked satisfied, and started for the door.

"Wait. Why is the blanket damp?"

He came back, folded the blanket open, and nearly jumped out of his skin. He fired a few questions at my mother, and her face went white too.

Only after he'd cleaned and redressed my wounds did he let out a breath and leave.

The next afternoon.

Peter and Marina walked in, fingers laced together.

Marina was glowing, like someone had drenched her in something sweet.

"Bryan, I came to see you."

Peter took a chair. Marina wiped me down.

When he saw my leg had been redressed, his brow tightened at once.

"Marina, if you keep wiping him down like that, I'm going to get jealous."

Marina let out a giggle. "He's my husband. Be good, I'll stay with you again tonight."

When she finished, the call bell at the head of the bed rang. A nurse wanted Marina to go pick up a test report.

Once she was gone, Peter saw no one else was around, so he leaned in close to my face and said, "Bryan, big brother, tell me. If someone were to accidentally unplug your ventilator, what do you think would happen?"

As he spoke, he pulled the ventilator plug out of the wall socket.

In an instant I couldn't draw in air. Suffocation closed over me.

My face went from pale to a bruised blue-purple.

"Go in peace, Bryan. Your mother and Marina don't love you anyway. All of their love is going to be mine."

"I'm off to find Marina. I'll buy her an iced coffee."

With that, Peter walked out whistling.

My mind went hazy fast.

The dark in front of me thickened.

My chest felt like it had hundreds of tons of stone pressing down on it. The pain was terrible.

The place Marina had gone for the report was in another building; the round trip took over ten minutes. That was long enough for me to suffocate to death.

"Mom, Marina, if I die, will you two ever regret what you did to me?"

Just as I was on the edge of death, someone burst in.

"Bryan, I've come back to see you."

It was my father's voice, so warm, so familiar.

More than half an hour later, Marina and Peter came strolling back, drinking their iced coffees.

"Huh?"

They stared at the empty bed, stunned.

"Where's my husband?" Marina went to the doorway and asked a nurse in pink walking past.

"Your husband... isn't he in the room...? Huh, he's gone?"

The nurse was shocked too. "He hasn't been discharged. I'll go pull the surveillance right now."

Marina was uneasy now. She quickly called my mother. "Bianca, Bryan's gone. Did you take him?"

My mother froze. "No. I'm at the store buying groceries. I haven't even been to the hospital today."

At that, Marina panicked and hurried to the nurses' station. "Any luck with the surveillance?"

The nurse in pink called out from inside. "Ms. James, I've got it, come take a look."

Marina went in.

The nurse worked the computer as she talked. "I just got the security captain in the monitor room to pull the footage from the sixth floor of the inpatient ward for the last hour. He packaged the video and sent it over."

As she spoke, she opened the video.

The surveillance feed came up. It showed my room and the hallway outside the door.

The nurse ran it at four times speed.

Before long, the door opened, and Marina walked out of the room toward the elevator.

Then Peter came out, whistling.

The footage kept fast-forwarding.

About fifty minutes after Marina left the room, she and Peter appeared on the video, arm in arm.

Seeing that, the nurse shot them a strange look and muttered, "That vegetative patient is her husband?"

The video ended.

"That's strange. No one went in or out of the room this whole time, so where did my husband go?"

The three of them looked at one another, because from the moment Marina and Peter walked out, no one had entered the room.

"Play it again. You don't need it that fast. And if anyone walks through the hallway, switch it to normal speed."

The nurse played it back the way Marina asked.

During that window, medical staff or patients' family members passed in front of the room a dozen or so times, but none of them went inside.

"Is this some kind of ghost thing?"

The three of them were badly rattled.

"I want to go look at the room."

They went back to the room, but there was nowhere to hide a person in there. The window had a security grille and hadn't been opened.

"Where... where did he go?"

Marina's mind was in a total panic.

The nurse's eyes went wide, and she looked around, terrified. "It doesn't make sense. He's a vegetative patient, he can't do anything for himself. How could he just vanish into thin air?"

Marina paced back and forth and found the plug that had been pulled out. "This plug connects to the ventilator. Why is it lying on the floor here?"

"Peter, you were the last one out. Did you notice anything with Bryan?"