I Worked Three Jobs To Support My Paralyzed Mother-in-law. I Came Home Early And Found Her Dancing While My Husband Filmed Her. How Should I Get Revenge?
The Facade of Perfection
The buzz of a direct deposit notification jolted me from the chaotic tangle of end-of-month figures and reports. I glanced at my phone screen. The figure of $5,500 glowed in the balance alert, an amount that five years ago, when I was just taking my first steps in this profession, I would not have dared to imagine even in my wildest dreams.
My name is Chloe. I’m 30, and I’m a creative director at a prestigious communications agency in New York City. From the outside, everyone looks at me with envy.
They say,
“I have a dream life, a modern woman with a career on the rise, a stable husband and family.”
But only I knew the truth behind the perfect facade. That supposed stability was actually as fragile as a soap bubble. Kevin, my husband, is an ordinary junior accountant with a salary that barely reaches a third of mine. I never considered it a problem. For me, marriage is an act of balance; if one is good at earning money, the other takes care of the home, as long as there is harmony between the two.
The Wolf at the Door
However, the storm began to brew the day Kevin timidly approached me with the idea of bringing his mother from her small town in Ohio.
He took my hand and said in a choked voice,
“Chloe, honey, my mom is all alone back home. She just had a mild stroke, and the left side of her body is paralyzed. I’m her only son; not bringing her here to care for her would be ungrateful. And if something happened to her while she was alone, I would regret it for the rest of my life.”
Seeing his red-rimmed eyes, my heart softened. I am a sentimental person by nature, and having lost my own mother at a young age, I value motherly love enormously. Despite my incredibly busy work schedule, I nodded. I had bought this three-bedroom apartment with my savings before we got married. Welcoming my mother-in-law wouldn’t be a problem in terms of space; it would just be a matter of one more plate, a bit more silverware, one more person to care for.
I couldn’t have imagined that that nod would be like opening my door to a wolf. Helen, my mother-in-law, arrived in New York looking pitiful, one arm hanging limp, dragging a leg, and a constant grimace of pain on her face. Feeling sorry for her, I hired a cleaning service. I personally took care of her meals and medication every night.
But Helen turned out to be more difficult than I had anticipated. She complained that the soup was watery, the chicken overcooked, and she criticized me for coming home late from work and neglecting the house. Some nights, just as I managed to get into bed, exhausted after an endless day, she would knock on my bedroom door demanding I take her to the bathroom, even though I had bought her a bedside commode and placed it right next to her bed.
Kevin always said the same thing,
“She’s old and she’s sick, Chloe. Just have a little patience with her.”
This morning was no different. After a sleepless night due to Helen’s moans and groans about her aching bones, I hastily put on my makeup to get to an early morning meeting on time. My mind was a whirlwind with the new project. I left the apartment like a hurricane.
Halfway to the office in a cab, I realized with horror that I had forgotten my ID card on my dresser. Without it, I couldn’t get through security to the conference room. I sighed and asked the driver to turn around.
