My Ex-husband Threw A $10,000 Card At Me While Leaving Me For A Younger Woman. Seven Years Later, I Finally Checked The Balance. Why Was There $2 Million In The Account?

“This thing about Daniel being dead… it’s a joke, right? It’s impossible.”

Ethan didn’t answer right away. He lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

Through the white veil, I could see his eyes were red. He laughed without joy.

“You think I have time to joke about my best friend’s life? He’s really dead, Laura. Bone cancer. Terminal.”

The words “terminal cancer” landed between us like two lead weights. I felt my chest tighten, making it hard to breathe.

The image of Daniel on the day of the divorce flashed in my mind. I saw his loose black trench coat, his pale colorless face, and his slightly unsteady posture.

At the time, I had attributed it to being drunk or to his contempt for me. Ethan tapped the ash from his cigarette and, in a grave voice, began to recount the story I had missed for seven years.

He told me about the days when Daniel started feeling sharp pains in his bones but hid it from me. He was lying about business trips to go to the hospital for tests.

He told me about the day Daniel got the results, sitting on a hospital bench all afternoon in silence. At that time, Daniel’s company was at its peak with a bright future ahead.

But fate had cruelly erased him from life. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms. “I was his wife. Whatever happened, we should have faced it together. Why did he lie and say he was having an affair? Why did he push me away?”

Ethan looked at me, his expression softening slightly but still filled with pain. “Do you remember what you were like back then, Laura? You were a delicate flower. You cried over everything. You were scared of ugly things. Daniel knew you better than anyone. He didn’t want you to see him in the emaciated, pathetic state of a dying man.”

Ethan continued, “Each word is a stab to my heart. He wanted you to remember him as the handsome, arrogant Daniel, the bastard who left you so you would have the courage to hate him, to forget him, and to move on. Sometimes hate is a more effective painkiller than pity. It makes you stronger.”

I bit my lip to suppress a sob. So his cruelty that day was the most tender and painful protection he could offer me.

I had lived for seven years fueled by resentment. I used my hatred for him as the engine to overcome my misery to keep from falling apart.

I thought I was strong, but in reality, I was just a stupid puppet in the clumsy play he had staged. “But what about the money?”

I hesitated. “The 2 million? Where did he get that much money at that time?”

Ethan stubbed out his cigarette. “He sold the company. He sold it at a loss right when it was at its peak in the business world.”

The rumor was that he had gone crazy or had gambling debts and needed cash urgently. He let the competition drive the price down, losing almost half its real value just to raise those $2 million in clean money to deposit in the bank for you.

“He said that in this life he couldn’t protect you anymore, so he would let the money do it in his place.”

I buried my face in my hands, tears streaming uncontrollably. I remembered how for years I had cursed him, wishing him the worst every time I struggled.

I reveled in the thought that he was living happily at the expense of my pain. But the truth was, while I was hating him, he was silently selling his life’s work.

He was selling his last ounces of strength to pave the way for me. The unfaithful husband I hated so much turned out to be the man who loved me to the point of foolishness.

Ethan ordered another black coffee on the rocks. The clinking of the ice against the glass sounded incredibly lonely.

He began to delve deeper into those dark days, into the secrets Daniel had taken to his grave. “Do you know what the first question he asked the doctor was when they handed him his death sentence?”

Ethan looked at me, his gaze lost in a painful memory. He didn’t ask how much time he had left or if there was a cure.

He asked the doctor, “Will I be in a lot of pain? Will I get really ugly?”

I was frozen. Daniel had never been a man who cared about his appearance.

He always laughed when I told him he looked like a mess. And yet, in the face of death, his greatest fear was ugliness.

Ethan smiled sadly. “At the time, I called him an idiot too, about to die and worried about being handsome or ugly. But he grabbed my hand. It was ice cold. And he said, ‘You don’t get it, Ethan. Laura loves beautiful things and she’s a neat freak. I don’t want her to see me losing all my hair, a skeleton lying in a hospital bed with a bunch of tubes. I don’t want her to have to change my diapers, to have to clean up after me. I’m scared. I’m scared of seeing the horror in her eyes when she sees me turned into a monster.'”

My tears started flowing again, hot, rolling down my cheeks. I remembered that I had in fact always been afraid of hospitals, the smell of disinfectant, and seeing open wounds.

Once, Daniel fell off his motorcycle and scraped his arms and legs. The sight of the blood made me turn pale.

He had to bandage himself while comforting me. He remembered everything.

He remembered even my smallest fears and used his own pain to shield my weakness. He was afraid it would traumatize me, that I would suffer.

So he chose to push me away so I would only remember him as a handsome traitor, not a walking corpse. “He suffered a lot, Laura,” Ethan’s voice broke.

“Bone cancer is one of the most painful pains. Like someone drilling into your spinal cord. So bad that even the strongest painkillers didn’t work. There were nights he would bite down on a towel so he wouldn’t scream. He would be drenched in sweat, writhing like a cooked shrimp. But as soon as morning came, he would force himself to sit up, comb his hair, put on that thick black trench coat to hide his increasingly emaciated body, and go out to play the part of an arrogant CEO.”

I pictured the scene and my heart clenched. The man I had shared my life with, the strong man who had always protected me, had to endure that torture in solitude.

And what was I doing at that time? I was sitting in my rented room, stewing in my heartbreak and silently cursing him.

My indifference, my stupid naivety, was the second knife in his back after the cruel illness. “He told me,” Ethan choked on a sob.

“He said to me, ‘Ethan, it hurts so much. I want to call Laura. I just want her to give me a hug. But I don’t dare. I’m afraid that if I hear her voice I’ll soften. I’ll start crying and begging her to come back. And that would be pathetic, selfish. I’m about to die. I can’t drag her life down with me.'”

I covered my mouth and broke down sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of the empty diner. “Daniel, you were such a fool. You took it upon yourself to decide for me. You assumed I couldn’t handle it.”