Just Divorced With Nothing, My Ex-Husband's Terminal Illness Was Misdiagnosed

01

The day my husband's one true love got pregnant, he slid a diagnosis across the table to me.

Late-stage liver cancer. The doctor says three months at most.

You're still so young. I don't want to hold you back.

The divorce agreement was already on the table, and the terms said he'd walk away from the marriage with nothing. The house, the car, the savings, all of it left to me.

He clenched his fingers and looked at me, almost pleading.

"I don't want a thing. I only ask that you let me go, and give her a name before I die."

But what he didn't know was that the real medical report was right there in my hands.

The liver cancer was a lie. The azoospermia was real.

The child in his one true love's belly could never have been his, not from the very start.

I looked at this man I'd spent years beside, and thinking of what we'd once had, I asked him softly.

"Are you sure about this?"

He nodded, quick and eager.

Eyes brimming, I signed my name.

"All right. A long and happy life to the three of you."

...

Once the papers were signed, Patrick Sawyer's eyes went red as a rabbit's.

He put on his heartbroken, devoted act and gripped my hand, refusing to let go.

"Honey, I'm sorry. It's just my rotten luck."

"During the thirty-day divorce cooling-off period, I'll still come home to see you often."

"Remember, there will always be a place for you in my heart."

I pinched my own thigh, hard, and forced out two tears.

I was honestly afraid I'd burst out laughing, and if this idiot suddenly changed his mind and refused to walk away with nothing, everything would be ruined.

Whoever came up with the divorce cooling-off period, I think it's marriage that needs one.

A week later.

I'd just started packing up around the house when the doorbell rang.

The door opened and Stella Fox sauntered in, belly not yet showing, walking like she owned the place.

Trailing behind her was Ferris James, Patrick's childhood buddy and so-called best brother.

Stella didn't even change out of her shoes at the door, just plopped herself right down on the sofa in the master bedroom.

Making herself the host in my house, she stroked her flat stomach and rolled her eyes at me.

"So sorry about this, sis. Patrick says it's his last wish."

"I'm afraid I'll have to trouble you to move out."

Ferris chimed in from the side, all snide and sing-song.

"Come on, be generous. Patrick's health is in the state it's in."

"Don't hold out over a title. Letting Stella have this baby in peace, that's what matters."

I gave a cold laugh.

"Oh, so now it's 'sis'? Stella, is sleeping around as the other woman really that satisfying?"

Stella's eyes reddened, and she instantly put on the picture of a wronged woman.

"How can you say that about me? You smothered him, you controlled everything, you didn't leave Patrick room to breathe!"

"In love, the one who isn't loved is the real mistress!"

I couldn't be bothered with this snake, and turned to fix my eyes on Ferris.

"Ferris, running around at their heels day in and day out, what exactly are you after?"

"You play the distant cousin a little too well, don't you?"

Ferris's expression shifted.

"What the hell are you talking about!"

I sneered and, right in front of Patrick, laid his history bare.

"Patrick, your good brother here shamelessly chased after me back in the day, or did you forget?"

"Texting me in the dead of night, saying that if I was willing, he'd run away with me anytime."

Ferris flushed red in an instant, eyes darting everywhere, not daring to look at Patrick.

Patrick froze for a second, then quickly threw an arm around Ferris's shoulder.

"Hey, it's all my fault!"

"Back then it was because you couldn't have children, and it ate at me, so I said something stupid when I was drunk and had Ferris go test you!"

"I just wanted to see whether you were really loyal to me!"

The moment I heard that, the disgust rose right up in me.

Couldn't have children? Where did he find the nerve to say that?

I choked back the churning in my stomach.

I thought back over these three years, all the ovulation shots I'd given myself night after night trying to conceive, my belly covered in needle marks.

Back when the tests came up empty, his family had gone frantic, every word aimed at blaming me.

Then the doctor sensed something was off and quietly told me.

"Could it be your husband who has the problem?"

The final results came back: his sperm count was already close to azoospermia.

I was laughably naive back then.

To protect his manhood, his pride, I hid the report.

I lied to my family, said it was my own weak body, that I had trouble conceiving.

I took every pointed finger for him.

And in the end?

He went out and made a baby with someone else.

What a joke. A colossal joke.

But right now I couldn't blow it all open.

I lowered my head at once, my shoulders shaking, playing up how deeply wronged I was.

"Patrick, three years married to you, working myself to the bone without complaint, and this is what you thought of me?"

"If you distrust me that much, then just go, both of you. I don't want to look at you."

Seeing me play the doormat, Patrick actually thought his little test had cut me to the heart.

My reaction moved him, and on his way out he kept apologizing to me.

"Honey, I'm sorry. It was all my fault."

Early the next morning.

To make it up to me, Patrick obediently went along with everything and finished notarizing the transfer of the property and the fund.

When the text popped up on my phone confirming the bank assets had been handed over.

I gripped the phone, having to look overcome with emotion while barely holding back the laugh about to spill out.

I knew him. This idiot was still dreaming of the day we'd all share one bed.

02

The last of the assets changed hands.

Patrick seemed to feel he'd completed the final redemption of his life, and the whole man practically glowed with his own nobility.

Then he turned around and invited Ferris over to the house again.

The grand purpose: to start planning his own funeral.

The two of them sat on the living room couch, the fruit I'd sliced still laid out on the coffee table.

Patrick informed me, righteous and solemn.

"Honey, the company found out about my illness. They've approved an eight-hundred-thousand death benefit for me."

"This money bought with my life, I plan to leave all of it to Stella."

He was moved by himself, tears even welling at the corners of his eyes.

"A woman needs security most when she's giving birth. She's still young, and it won't be easy raising the child later. She can't have any less than that."

Beside him, Ferris sighed with fake sympathy.

"Patrick, don't talk about dying, it's bad luck. Maybe there'll be a miracle."

Patrick raised a hand to cut Ferris off, his tone unbearably tragic.

"Brother, this is what a man's supposed to do."

"I called you here today because I want you, my best friend, to be a witness."

"If Lucretia ever runs into trouble down the road, you have to look out for her for me."

I sat off to the side, watching these two clowns run their little double act.

Then Patrick turned suddenly and reached out to touch my belly.

I twisted away.

He sighed, his face full of regret.

"Honey, the biggest regret of my life is that we never had a child."

"Your health was never good, you suffered so much, and I made my peace with it."

I forced down the disgust rising in me and pressed out a proper smile.

"All right, stop dwelling on it. Take it easy."

"Go move in and stay with Stella for her confinement. She needs you most right now."

Hearing me say that, Patrick was so moved he shed another two tears.

When Ferris left, he dragged it out to the very last on purpose.

At the door, he turned back and looked at me.

That look was slick and filthy, sweeping me up and down.

I didn't give an inch, staring coldly right back.

Stung by my eyes, Ferris rubbed his nose awkwardly and slunk off.

03

The thirty-day cooling-off period ended.

I hauled Patrick straight to the county clerk's office, no dawdling.

The moment the seal came down.

The instant the finalized divorce was in my hand, Patrick's eyes went red again.

He reached out to hug me, trying to stage one last tearful farewell.

"Honey, if there's a next life, I swear I'll love you with a clean heart."

I twisted away in disgust, dodging his hand.

"Save it. You make me sick."

I said nothing the whole way and walked straight home.

The second I was through the door, I went straight to the bedroom and dragged out the oversized black trash bags I'd already set aside.

Right in front of him.

The clothes hanging in his closet, the shoes in the rack, the razor in the bathroom.

I crammed all of it into the bags in one sweep.

Then I dragged and hauled.

I dumped both huge trash bags right out in the hallway outside the door.

I pointed toward the elevator and yelled at him.

"Take your garbage and get out. Now."

Patrick stood there stunned.

Clearly he hadn't expected me to turn on him faster than flipping a page.

His pride in shreds, he jabbed a finger at my face and railed at me.

"Lucretia, you really are cold-blooded!"

"Is money all you see? You get the house and the savings, then you kick me to the curb!"

Right as he was going.

The phone in his pocket rang.

Stella's sugary voice leaked out of the speaker.

"Patrick, my morning sickness is so bad, I can't keep anything down. I'm suddenly dying for those palmiers from that place on the South Side."

Patrick's furious face flipped in an instant.

He softened his voice to the person on the line.

"Okay, sweet girl, I'll go buy them for you right now."

He hung up and turned back to me with a look of pure contempt.

"Lucretia, you don't have the faintest idea what real love is."

"A woman like you, with nothing in her head but material things, deserves to grow old alone!"

I couldn't be bothered to stand there listening to his crap.

I lifted my foot.

The suitcase he'd left sitting outside the plastic bags, I kicked it straight through the security door.

As he stumbled backward.

I slammed the door hard and threw the deadbolt with a click.

Finally, some peace.

04

Two weeks after the divorce.

Patrick was still texting me every few days to make my life difficult.

One message asking where I'd put some suit of his, the next one moaning about how exhausted he was, worn down by Stella's morning sickness.

I couldn't stand it, so I just blocked every way he had of reaching me.

That day, I had just listed the condo for sale.

The agent had only just finished taking the photos and left.

My phone buzzed with a string of messages.

They were from an old friend the two of us used to share, sending me a link.

"Lucretia, look at this. Your ex-husband and that mistress are livestreaming and trashing you!"

I opened the link.

On the screen, Patrick and Stella sat side by side in front of the camera.

Both of them in tears.

Ranting away about how vicious and heartless I'd been as an ex-wife.

Patrick's face was flushed and glowing, not a trace of a terminally ill man about him.

He held up a hospital form and announced it loudly to the camera.

"Everyone, there is justice in this world after all!"

"I don't have late-stage liver cancer at all. The hospital mixed up the paperwork. It was a misdiagnosis!"

"But my ex-wife, she knew all along it was a misdiagnosis!"

"She hid it from me on purpose, used the excuse that I didn't have long to live, and tricked me into signing a divorce agreement that left me with nothing!"

Stella sat beside him, one hand on her belly, eyes brimming, chiming in.

"That's right, Patrick has been through so much."

"That woman cared more about money than her own husband's life. She threw him out of his own home."

"If I hadn't taken him in, he'd be sleeping on the street right now."

Then, of all people, Ferris showed up on camera too.

He appeared in the role of the loyal friend speaking up for justice.

"I've been Patrick's buddy for decades. I can vouch for this."

"That Lucretia Henson always looked down on people without money. She never had any respect for us, his friends."

"This time she schemed the whole thing out to swallow up every last bit of Patrick's assets."

The live comments in the stream caught fire in an instant.

All of them calling me vicious, a scheming bitch, saying I deserved to die badly.

Some even started stirring the crowd up, digging out my private information.

In under five minutes, my phone was buried under an endless stream of harassing calls from out-of-state numbers.

Patrick shouted into the stream, righteous as anything.

"Lucretia Henson, if you're watching, I'm giving you three days. Return my house and half my savings, right now!"

"Otherwise, I'll take you to court for fraud!"

I watched the two clowns leaping around on my screen without a flicker of feeling.

They really wouldn't rest until they'd dug their own graves.

Using my real account, my own selfie as the profile picture, I walked straight into their livestream.

In the middle of the wall of abuse, my fingers flew, and I dropped three live comments one after another.

"Patrick, did you read the medical report I mailed you?"

"Is your good buddy really so reliable?"

"Do you actually have a child?"