Split-Bill Wife Spent Big Saving Ex's Dog, Abandoned Our Daughter

There was a crash.

I was pinned in the back seat, my one-month-old daughter in my arms, and both of us were dying.

I begged my wife, who didn't have a scratch on her, to call an ambulance.

Instead, unhurried, she pulled out a pen and paper and set them in front of me.

Sign this first.

You caused this accident by badgering me and making me lose focus. Every loss is on you.

The baby's breathing was growing fainter, and I was frantic.

"Angela Delgado, this is your child too"

She didn't budge.

"Repairs, emergency care, and every cost that comes after are yours alone to bear."

"If you don't sign, don't expect me to make this call."

I couldn't gamble. Shaking, I signed my name.

There was no ink pad, so I dipped my finger in my own blood and pressed my fingerprint down.

Angela nodded, satisfied, and carefully folded the paper into her wallet.

She was about to dial for help when the ringtone she'd set for her old flame went off.

"Angela, my dog's in trouble giving birth, the puppy's stuck and won't come out."

"I'm so scared. Can you come help me?"

Angela answered instantly.

"Don't be scared. I'll get in touch with the best animal hospital right now."

"Don't worry about the money, I'll cover all of it. Just wait for me like a good boy."

Then she left me there alone and walked off without a backward glance.

I touched my daughter's face, growing cold, and my vision blurred.

Eight years of marriage. Let it end here.

In the end it was a kind stranger passing by who called the ambulance.

My daughter and I were wheeled into the emergency room at the same time, a nurse's voice drifting past my ear.

"Hemorrhagic shock, no heartbeat on the infant. Where's the family?"

Someone gave my arm a gentle nudge.

"Sir, give me a number for the family."

My heart felt like it was being crushed, the pain stealing my breath.

Without thinking, I gave them Angela's number.

The nurse dialed and put it on speaker.

"Is this Rupert Sullivan's family? He and his daughter were in an accident with severe bleeding. We need a family member to come sign the surgical consent forms."

The line went quiet for two seconds. Then came a snort.

"This again. Rupert, how childish can you get?"

Her voice was pure impatience.

"I just went to help Matthew Fox's dog deliver, and you're swearing on our kid over it?"

"Fighting a dog for attention. Have you no shame?"

Faintly, I heard Matthew's voice in the background.

"Angela, Rice Cake won't eat anything."

She answered him, then turned back to say to me,

"Matthew's dog just gave birth, she's weak, I can't leave."

"Keep the bills, we'll split them later. Don't worry, I won't take advantage of you."

The call cut off.

"No need. There's no need to split anything ever again."

I murmured it to the dark screen.

The nurse stood beside me, her face full of pity.

"Mr. Sullivan, do you want to contact any other family?"

I shook my head, forced myself upright, and signed my own name with a trembling hand.

When I woke again, the nurse was wheeling me into the morgue.

"Mr. Sullivan, I'm so sorry. We couldn't save your daughter."

"My condolences."

I touched my daughter's tiny, soft face and broke down sobbing.

After a long time I dug out my phone to tell Angela, and found that Matthew had posted several updates in a row.

A luxury pet delivery room, Angela feeding the puppy goat's-milk formula with a syringe.

The last picture was an itemized bill.

Emergency delivery, postnatal care, a dedicated maternity nurse. Total: thirty-eight thousand.

In the line for the payer's signature: Angela.

Below it, his reply to a friend's comment read,

"Angela paid for all of it. She said we couldn't shortchange Rice Cake. You don't know what it means, that safety of having the mother right there."

I couldn't help a bitter smile.

From the day we married until now, she'd split every single thing with me.

Matthew's dog gives birth, and she pays, does the work, and tends to it herself.

So it wasn't that she was cheap. It was that I wasn't worth spending her money on.

The next moment, Angela's call came in.

I thought her conscience had stirred, that she was checking on me and the baby.

Instead, the second I picked up, out came her cold interrogation.

"Rupert, what's your problem?"

"This morning it was fifteen dollars to park for you and your daughter. Your share is seven-fifty. Why haven't you sent it over yet?"

Listening to her, all I felt was how absurd it was, how cruel.

"We'll settle the gas at the end of the month. Parking's split down the middle, seven-fifty, send it to me now so you don't forget again."

The IV needle was still in the back of my hand, cold fluid trickling into me drop by drop.

My daughter was gone. I was lying in a hospital bed, my own life in the balance.

And she was still haggling over a seven-fifty split.

"It's only seven-fifty. You're not going to stiff me on it, are you?"

I opened my phone and quickly sent her seven-fifty.

She collected it in a second, then replied, "Be more responsible from now on. Don't make me chase you three or four times."

I scrolled back through our chat, and it was all this, the back-and-forth of tallying up and splitting.

This marriage I'd poured eight years into carefully. It really was utterly pointless.

Let this last seven-fifty be the final payment I make on it.

The day I was discharged, I took a cab home alone.

I pushed open the door, and the nursery I'd put together so carefully had become a dog den.

The crib I'd spent three days assembling with my own hands, the little socks and little clothes folded into neat stacks, all of it was gone.

Angela and Matthew Fox were bent head to head, toweling off a puppy.

"Who said you could touch my nursery?"

I'd spent three months setting up that room.

A lot of it Angela said we didn't need, so I'd paid for every bit of it alone.

Matthew spoke first.

"The dog just gave birth and she's weak. Angela said your daughter's still too little to need the nursery yet, so we borrowed it for a while to help her recover."

Angela stood up, her tone like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"It'd just sit empty and go to waste. Might as well let Matthew use it."

Anger churned up in me. "Did you ask me first? Where are all the baby things that were in that room?"

Matthew put on an innocent face. "Angela said a lot of it wasn't needed for now, so I threw it out for you."

"Rupert, you're not going to be this stingy, are you?"

Angela stepped in front of him, shielding him.

"Rupert, that's enough. You come home and the first thing you do is put us on trial."

"Matthew was kind enough to help clean up, and you throw that look at him?"

My child's things. Never used, not even once, and they threw them out without asking.

"They can be used. But then we settle up by the rules."

"The baby things I bought before were all brand new. You moved them and damaged them without permission, so you pay me full price."

"Also, for occupying the room, we bill by the day."

Angela's face went dark.

"Rupert, can you not nickel-and-dime everything?"

"The room sits empty anyway. Matthew's only borrowing it for a while, and you're going to calculate a little rent off him?"

I held her hypocritical face in my stare, a mocking curl at the corner of my mouth.

"You're the one who always wanted rules with me, splitting everything down the middle, equal."

"Eight years married. Rent split, utilities split, groceries split."

"Even when my gastritis was so bad I couldn't eat, the leftovers got counted as my waste."

"You taught me the rules. What's wrong with me following them now?"

I'd left her with nothing to say, and it made her flush with anger.

"That's not the same. Matthew's like a real brother to me."

"He's got no one to lean on in this city. What's wrong with me looking after him a little?"

"You're my husband, and to him you're the younger brother you should give a little and be understanding."

Listening to her, all I felt was how absurd it was.

"When our daughter and I were in a car crash you made me pay it myself, but his dog whelps and you drop thirty-eight hundred without blinking."

"Angela, your double standard is truly sickening."

"Our daughter is gone now"

Before I could finish, Matthew cut in, dropping his head like the wronged one.

"Rupert, it's all my fault. Please, don't fight."

"I shouldn't have troubled Angela, I shouldn't have taken your room, but Mochi and her pups are living things too..."

And with that he scooped up Mochi and ran out.

Angela rounded on me sharply.

"Rupert, that's enough! When did you turn into such a petty, impossible little penny-pincher?"

"Matthew sat up with Mochi through the birth. He's barely rested these past few days. Can't you show a little consideration?"

I wanted to say our daughter was still in the morgue. I wanted to say I was the one injured in the crash, weaker than any of them. I wanted to ask why she couldn't show me any consideration.

But the words came to my lips, and I swallowed them back down.

With someone who doesn't love you, no matter how much you say, it's just making a scene.

The front door slammed. Angela had gone chasing after Matthew.

From school uniforms to a wedding dress, eight years, and I'd honored her so-called splitting-everything, her equality.

When she ran a fever I sat up three days and three nights. That didn't count for money.

When my gastritis was so bad I couldn't eat, she asked whether the leftover food could be counted as my personal waste.

I pulled a ledger out of the drawer, every day's expenses recorded line by line.

Small as a twenty-cent plastic bag, large as rent, utilities, the mortgage.

I had eight of these books.

I turned to the last page, picked up a pen, and added a line.

"Daughter's funeral costs, $8,600, borne by Rupert alone."

Our eight years of marriage ended here too.

Early the next morning, Angela came back carrying a plastic takeout container.

The heavy smell of seafood drifted over, and my stomach turned.

"This place makes a really good seafood chowder. Matthew has a small appetite, couldn't finish it."

"I figured throwing it out would be a waste, so I brought it back for you to try."

"Seafood chowder isn't cheap. By rights you should pay Matthew half."

"But he's always been kind and generous, so we'll just call it the rent on the nursery."

I couldn't help the cold laugh in my chest. I pushed the half-eaten bowl of chowder back across to her.

"Angela, how much does a one-bedroom go for on the market?"

She blanked for a second, then caught my meaning and flushed with anger.

"Rupert, it's the thought that counts. Since when did you crawl so far up your own wallet?"

"Isn't this what you taught me?"

When I had acute appendicitis and spent half a month in bed recovering,

she itemized the extra water, gas, and electricity I'd used, said I'd run the air conditioning too much at home.

"Is there any point dragging up all this old stuff? Do you even want this marriage to work?"

I lifted my eyes to her, calm and flat.

"Crib, five thousand eight. Warming sterilizer, three thousand six. Pure cotton bedding, twelve hundred."

"Clothes and toys, two thousand. Room renovation, ten thousand. Twenty-two thousand six hundred total. You pay it in full."

"And our daughter, she's at the hospital"

Angela cut me off, her face full of disappointment.

"Rupert, you get colder and meaner by the day. You used to be so understanding, so easygoing. You never kept score."

"When I didn't keep score, you wanted every last thing accounted for. Now I follow your rules, and suddenly I'm cold and mean?"

"Angela, why do your rules only ever point at me?"

She had no answer. She pulled out a wad of bills and flung them at me, letting them scatter.

"Fine. You want this little bit of money, take it. But you remember, you're the one driving a wedge between us."

"When our daughter grows up, I'll be sure to tell her never to marry a petty, penny-pinching man like you."

Something twisted in my chest.

Even now, she still didn't believe the baby was gone.

I thought of the cremation arrangements the funeral home had sent over, and my voice softened.

"Angela, are you free tomorrow? There's somewhere I need to take you."

She was still riled up, and her cheeks puffed out at the words.

"Is my time worth nothing to you?"

"You want me to go with you, fine. Pay me by the hour."

I pressed down the ache and the helplessness rising in me.

"Fine. Whatever your hourly rate is, I'll pay it."

"Fifteen hundred an hour."

I picked up my phone and transferred her forty-five hundred. "I'll be taking three hours of your time tomorrow. Here's the payment up front."

Buying the child one last chance to see her mother.

The words had barely left me when her phone rang.

"Angela, Rice Cake's got a bit of diarrhea, I'm freaking out."

Angela couldn't spare another second to argue with me. She grabbed her coat and headed for the door.

"I need to go check on Matthew's dog. The rest of this can wait."

I stubbornly caught the sleeve of her coat.

"You just agreed. Nine tomorrow morning, you come with me."

"Angela, it's the last time."

It was the last time I would ever beg her like this, small and pleading.

Beg her to do a mother's duty, just once, and say goodbye to her child properly.

Angela's brows knit tight, her whole face impatient.

"Can you stop being such a pain? What if something happens to Rice Cake?"

"Can't your little mess wait a while?"

She pushed my hand off, her voice ice-cold and final.

"Rupert, I don't have time to indulge your drama."

With that, she yanked the door open and walked off fast.

I stood where I was, everything inside me gone still and dead.

Then I turned and gathered my things, and set the signed divorce papers on the desk in her study.

After tomorrow, we'd go our separate ways, free of each other.

The next day was the day our daughter was cremated.

I wanted Angela and me to see her off together, one last time.

But the agreed hour came and went, and Angela never showed.

I called more than a dozen times. No one picked up.

The four thousand five hundred dollars for her time, she'd taken.

The three hours she'd promised, she'd forgotten.

The coordinator came to hurry me again. I swallowed down every ounce of grief and pressed one last kiss to my daughter's little face.

I watched, helpless, as she was rolled into the cremation chamber, and I dropped to my knees, ruined.

I don't know how long passed before a staff member handed me a small box.

Grief and rage twisted together in my chest as I drove straight to Matthew Fox's place.

Angela rented it for him. Thirteen thousand a month. She never once mentioned splitting the bill.

The apartment was loud with noise. Matthew saw me first.

"Well, look who it is. What's Rupert doing here?"

"Mochi popped out three baby boys. Angela said we had to celebrate properly."

Angela stood in the middle of the crowd, cradling the dog, her face flushed and glowing.

When she saw me she froze for a beat, then raised an eyebrow.

"Since you're here, might as well join the fun. Don't forget to chip in a gift for Mochi."

"Oh, right, whatever you eat or drink gets charged separately. Just pay Matthew directly."

I stood in the doorway, cold all through.

Today was the day our daughter was cremated.

And she, the mother who bore her, was standing here in a red dress, throwing a birthday party for a dog.

Someone nearby snickered.

I stood where I was, a joke.

"I'm not here for the party."

"You promised me three hours this morning. Why didn't you come?"

Something flickered in Angela's eyes.

"I just couldn't get away, all right? Mochi just gave birth, Matthew can't handle it all on his own."

"I wasn't breaking my word on purpose. Just wait outside for a bit. Once I'm done, I'll go with you."

Fine. I'd wait.

Just this one last time.

Wait for her to say a proper goodbye to our child, to lay our child to rest.

I turned and went out to the stairwell to wait. I don't know how long it was before Matthew came out holding a glass of red wine.

"Rupert, you're actually waiting?"

"You don't really think Angela loves you, do you?"

"Let me tell you, you're just a stand-in. Back when I left, she just grabbed you off the shelf."

"The one she's always wanted is me."

When I didn't react, his eyes shifted and he leaned in close to my ear.

"You know why she insisted on splitting everything with you?"

"That was a promise she made me. Never spend a cent on another man."

Something in me went cold. Eight years of marriage. The equality and respect I thought we had turned out to be nothing but a promise she'd made another man.

Matthew looked at my white face, and a vicious smile curled at his mouth.

"Oh, and that crash last time, that wasn't an accident either."

"Angela lost a bet to me. I told her to give you a real scare."

"I figured she wouldn't have the heart. Turns out she didn't hesitate for a second."

A buzzing filled my ears, the blood rushing up all at once.

So the crash hadn't been an accident. She'd done it on purpose.

With her own hands, she'd killed our child.

I couldn't stop shaking.

"Aren't you two afraid of what's coming to you?"

Matthew laughed out loud. "Afraid of what? Even if there's a reckoning, Angela will shield me."

"Don't believe me? Want to test it?"

The words had barely left his mouth when he hurled the wine glass down hard against the floor and swung his own hand across his face in a brutal slap.

Then he clapped a hand over his cheek, crouched to the ground, and started to cry, pitiful.

"Rupert, I know you resent Angela for taking care of me."

"But you can't go after Mochi's babies. They're only a few days old"

Sobbing, he threw himself into Angela's arms.

"Angela, my baby boys are gone"

Angela looked at the three puppies lying motionless in the whelping box beside her, and she wanted to tear me to pieces.

"Rupert, how can you be this cruel!"

"Those puppies were innocent. You could actually do that to them?"

"It wasn't me."

"Not you, then who? Puppies of this breed go for a hundred thousand at market price. You're paying for them!"

Matthew wept in her arms, gasping for breath.

"Angela, I don't want money. Those were three little lives. You can't put a price on life."

"I want him in mourning for my baby boys, keeping vigil three days and three nights to atone."

Angela didn't find a thing wrong with it.

"Rupert, you're the one in the wrong. Matthew isn't asking for too much."

"Keep vigil for the dogs three days, apologize, and we'll call it even."

My stomach heaved, and I retched up a mouthful of blood.

"Rupert, what's wrong with you?"

Matthew sniffled. "He, he isn't trying to fake being sick to weasel out of it, is he?"

Angela stood there, brows knotted, glaring at me in displeasure.

I dragged the corners of my mouth into a smile.

"Three precious dog lives. Mourning clothes, three days of vigil, how could that ever be enough!"

"Angela, would my daughter's life be enough to pay him back?"

I flung our daughter's death certificate hard into her face.

Angela stared blankly at the words on it, the color draining from her face inch by inch.

"Rup, Rupert"

"What happened to our daughter?"