My Ex-husband Threw Us Out During A Storm Because Our Son Was A “defective Product.” 18 Years Later, He Crawled Into My Son’s Hospital Begging For His Life. Who Is The “defective” One Now?

Into the Lion’s Den

The office door opened slowly. The sound of the well-oiled hinges signaled the beginning of a new act in the drama of our lives. I sat in the guest chair facing the large window, my back to the entrance.

I deliberately did not turn around. I wanted to hear his voice first. I wanted to hear his arrogance before I shattered it.

“Please have a seat, sir. Ma’am.” Sarah’s voice. The nurse who escorted them sounded polite yet cold.

The sound of heavy feet shuffled across the thick carpet. There was an irregular pause in each step. Drag, step, drag, step. That had to be Mark.

His rotting foot made it impossible for him to walk normally. The smell hit me immediately. Even though the room was fragrant with lavender and the air conditioning was on full blast, a foul medicinal odor still managed to seep in.

It was the smell of necrotic tissue, the smell of flesh surrendering to disease.

“Wow, this doctor’s office is so fancy,” Bella’s shrill voice broke the silence. “Look at this sofa, Mark. It’s real leather. The doctor must be loaded, not like that guy at the county clinic yesterday.”

“Hush. Don’t be so tacky,” Mark scolded, his breath labored. “Of course it’s fancy. This is a top-tier hospital. I told you my connections here are solid. The department head probably agreed to see me because he knows who I am.”

I held back a bitter laugh. He was still bluffing. Who did he think he was? A president? An oil tycoon? He was just a bankrupt patient begging for his life.

I heard the sound of a chair being dragged loudly. Mark plopped himself down in the chair in front of Leo’s desk.

Leo sat there calmly, a medical mask covering half his face and reading glasses perched on his nose. He looked utterly professional and detached.

“Good afternoon,” Leo greeted. His voice was deliberately lowered, sounding flat and emotionless. He didn’t look Mark in the eye, instead focusing on the file in his hands.

“Afternoon, doc,” Mark replied in a chummy tone. “I’m Mark Peterson, the referral patient who made a bit of a fuss downstairs. You know how it is, Doc. The admin staff sometimes doesn’t understand priorities. I need urgent attention.”

“I’ve read your file,” Leo cut in sharply, ignoring Mark’s small talk. “Your condition is extremely poor, Mr. Peterson. Why did you wait so long to come in?”

Mark stammered.

“Well, you know, doc, busy with business. I have a lot of projects, so my health got a little neglected. But don’t worry, I’m tough. This is just a small wound on my foot that won’t heal.”

“A small wound?” Leo repeated cynically. “The fourth and fifth toes of your left foot are necrotic, completely dead. They’re black, aren’t they? And the smell, I can smell it from here even through my mask.”

There was a brief silence. I could imagine Mark’s face turning red with shame. His sky-high pride had just been scratched.

“It’s… It’s because my bandage hasn’t been changed since yesterday,” Mark excused himself. “Look, doc, the bottom line is I need immediate action. Dialysis and surgery on my foot. But there’s a small technical issue with the administration regarding the deposit. I heard that you as the head have the authority to grant, let’s call it a special policy for priority patients.”

“You’re requesting financial assistance?” Leo asked, getting straight to the point.

“Not requesting, doc. Borrowing the facility,” Mark corrected quickly, his pride too great to admit he was poor. “My assets aren’t liquid right now. My money is tied up in some real estate investments. So I just need your signature on this charity care form so the procedures can get started. Once my money is freed up, I’ll pay it all back in cash.”

Lie after lie. I was sick of hearing it. I closed the magazine I had been holding. The charade was over. It was time for me to enter the stage.

“Real estate investments?” My voice cut through their conversation. I spoke without turning around. “You mean that rented apartment by the river that floods every spring?”

The atmosphere in the room froze.

“Who is that?” Mark asked, startled. He had only just realized someone else was in the room besides the nurse. “Doc, who is this woman? Another patient? Why is she meddling in my affairs?”

“She is not a patient,” Leo answered calmly. “She is the majority shareholder of this hospital and she knows you very well, Mr. Peterson.”

Mark fell silent. My chair swiveled around slowly. The movement was deliberate, dramatic, like a scene from one of the movies he used to love.

My face emerged from behind the high back of the chair. I stared at him directly, a sharp gaze that held 18 years of resentment.

Mark’s eyes widened; his jaw dropped. His pale, sickly face now looked as though he had seen a ghost.

“Eleanor,” he hissed, his voice caught in his throat.

“Hello again, my dear ex-husband,” I greeted him coldly. “It’s a small world, isn’t it?”

Bella, sitting beside him, jumped. She looked at me with a mixture of fear and hatred.

“You’re that woman from the lobby. Why are you here? Are you stalking us?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Bella,” I replied casually. I stood up and walked toward Leo’s desk.

I stood beside my son, placing a hand on his shoulder as if to affirm that we were an inseparable team.

“This is my office. This is my hospital. You are the ones who walked into my den.”

Mark stared at me in disbelief.

“You’re a shareholder? Don’t be ridiculous, Eleanor. You’re just a dumb woman who never finished college. You must have scammed some rich guy and become his mistress, right?”

I laughed a loud, piercing laugh.

“You always judge people with that filthy mind of yours. After you threw me out, Mark, I worked hard. I went back to school. I built a catering business, then real estate, and now healthcare. I don’t need a man to become wealthy, unlike you who needs a rich woman just to survive.”

I glanced at Bella, who was now looking down, not daring to meet my gaze. I took Mark’s medical file from Leo’s desk. I opened it roughly.

“Let’s talk facts, Mark. Forget the bluster about investments and projects. Let’s talk about your rotting body.”

I read the contents of the file aloud as if I were reading a death sentence.

“Blood sugar level 450. That’s a terrifying number, Mark. Your blood is basically syrup, not red blood. Your kidney creatinine is at 12. Normal is under 1.5. Your kidneys have turned to stone. They’re not functioning at all. Do you know what that means?”

Mark trembled. Cold sweat began to bead on his forehead.

“Stop it.”

“It means your body is poisoning itself,” I continued without mercy. “Every second you breathe, uremic toxins are building up in your brain, your heart, your lungs. That’s why your breath smells like urine. That’s why you’re often short of breath. You are drowning in your own filth.”

“Shut up!” Mark yelled. He tried to stand, but his leg was in too much pain. He slumped back into his chair, wincing.

I walked around the desk, approaching his chair. I stood right next to his ear.

“And your foot. You called it a small wound? The tissue there is dead, Mark. It’s rotten. Bacteria are eating your flesh down to the bone. If it’s not amputated soon, the bacteria will spread to your blood. It’s called sepsis. And if that happens, you’ll be dead in a matter of hours.”

“Enough!” Mark screamed. He covered his ears with both hands. “I don’t want to hear it! Doctor, do something! Don’t let this crazy woman talk!”

He looked at Leo with a pleading expression, hoping the doctor before him would defend him, hoping for some sort of male solidarity.

“Doc, please help me. Sign the form. I want to get better. I promise I’ll pay. Get this woman out of here, Doc. She’s just trying to break me down. This is unethical.”

Leo didn’t move. He just stared at Mark with an unreadable expression.

I returned to my position in front of the desk. I looked at Mark with a sense of satisfaction spreading through my chest. Seeing him scared, seeing him beg, seeing him so fragile. This was payment in full for every tear I had shed.

“Are you afraid to die, Mark?” I asked.

Mark looked at me with watery eyes. His arrogance had crumbled. All that was left was the primal human fear of death.

“Who isn’t afraid to die?” he answered softly. “I still want to live. I still have a child I need to…”

He stopped his sentence, probably realizing he had no child he was caring for. The child he had with Bella never existed, as she was infertile. A fact I knew from old neighborhood gossip.

“A child?” I cut in. “Which child? The one you threw out onto the street in a thunderstorm?”

Mark’s face went ashen. He remembered. Of course he remembered.

“That… that was in the past, Eleanor. Why are you so vengeful? To err is human.”

“Erring is when you forget to buy milk,” I snapped. “Throwing your own child out because he’s disabled isn’t an error. It’s a crime. It’s an atrocity.”

My breath was coming fast. I had to calm myself. I couldn’t lose control. I had to remain elegant in my destruction of him.

“Do you know what the greatest irony is, Mark?” I asked, my voice calm again. “You used to mock my son’s body. You said his leg was ugly. You said he was useless. Now look at your own leg. Who’s disabled now? Who’s useless now?”

Mark looked down. He saw his thickly bandaged foot. The bandage was soaked with yellow fluid and blood.

“I need treatment, Eleanor,” he said pitifully. “If you really are a shareholder here, please consider it charity. I was your husband. We used to love each other.”

“Love?” I laughed without humor. “You loved my young body. When I became a frumpy mother, you threw me away. Now you’re begging for mercy in the name of a past love? There was no love between us, Mark. Only a karmic debt.”

I pointed to the charity care form on the desk.

“You want that signature? You want your life saved?”

Mark nodded quickly.

“Yes, yes, please. I’ll do anything, anything at all. I’ll apologize. I’ll get on my knees and beg if I have to.”

I smiled faintly.

“It’s not me you need to beg, but the person with the medical authority in this room.”

I turned to Leo. I gave him a slight nod. It was time. The stage was set.

Mark’s spirit was broken. He was desperate. He was ready for the final blow that would kill his soul before the disease killed his body.