My Mother-in-law Tried To Poison My Chowder. I’m A Pharmacist, So I Knew Exactly What She Added. I Sent The “gift” To My Cheating Husband Instead.

The Unraveling Truth

I turned to look at Betty.

She was sitting on a chair, her eyes vacant like someone who had just woken from a dream and couldn’t believe it was real.

I handed her a bottle of water and said softly, “Drink this, Mom, and then you’re going to tell me who was Nathan with at the Pinnacle. How long have you known? And the powder you put in the chowder, where did you get it?”

Betty held the bottle, her hands trembling.

She looked at me as if I were a stranger, then as if I were her last hope.

I knew her answer would open another door.

And behind that door was not just betrayal but a plan, and I, Laura, would have to walk through it.

Betty sat in silence for a long time, the water bottle untouched in her hand, her lips were cracked and dry, her eyes staring blankly into the space in front of her as if replaying fragmented memories being dragged out and exposed under the harsh white hospital lights.

I didn’t rush her.

Some truths, when forced, only result in lies.

I waited the same way I would wait for a patient to recover from a drug-induced shock: not pushing, not prodding, just observing their breathing in their eyes.

Finally, Betty spoke, her voice raspy.

“Laura, do you believe me?”

I looked at her.

For the first time in years, I saw my mother-in-law as just an old woman who was scared and lost, no longer the nitpicking matriarch, not yet a convicted criminal.

I gave a slight nod.

“I believe you will tell the truth, but I don’t believe you are innocent,”.

Betty closed her eyes, tears squeezing out and rolling down her wrinkled cheeks.

“I never thought it would come to this. I swear to you, I only wanted you to get sick so Nathan would have a reason to divorce you. I didn’t think… I didn’t think he would die,”.

I didn’t interject.

I just asked short, precise questions.

“Where did you get that powder?”

Betty trembled.

She opened her eyes and looked at me as if into a mirror reflecting herself.

“Nathan gave it to me,”.

The words fell in the hospital corridor like a heavy stone.

I had suspected as much, but hearing her say it aloud, my heart still ached, not from surprise but from the cold realization of how a human being could hand his own mother a drug and tell her to go harm his wife.

“When did Nathan give it to you?” I asked, my voice steady though a storm was raging in my chest.

“About a week ago. He said it was just crushed up antibiotics,”.

“He said you always drink wine at night and if I mixed it into the chowder you’d have an allergic reaction and have to be hospitalized but you wouldn’t die. He said that would make the divorce easier so he wouldn’t have the stigma of leaving a healthy wife,”.

I let out a dry, quiet laugh, but it was bitter.

“Did he give you any other instructions?”

Betty nodded, her voice a whisper.

“He told me to sprinkle it in when you weren’t looking. He told me to wipe the container’s rim clean. He also said that if you asked, I should just say it was bad takeout food,”.

I closed my eyes for a second.

In my mind, I could clearly picture Nathan sitting somewhere, his voice gentle, his demeanor kind, explaining every detail as if he were instructing a nurse on how to administer medication.

The man who had held my hand before our family altar and promised to be with me through sickness and in health.

That same man had step-by-step taught his own mother how to push me closer to death.

“Do you know why Nathan wanted a divorce?” I pressed on.

Betty fell silent, then lowered her head.

“I… I knew,”.

I looked straight at her.

“It was because of that woman who was just wheeled into the ER, wasn’t it?”

Betty didn’t answer immediately, but her silence was the loudest confession.

She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking.

“He said you couldn’t have children. He said she was pregnant. I… I was so happy. I thought our family would finally have a grandchild. My judgment was clouded,”.

I listened, my heart feeling hollow.

So it wasn’t just betrayal, but complicity.

It wasn’t just a husband’s affair, but an entire family quietly choosing to discard me.

In their eyes, I wasn’t a person but an obstacle to be neatly removed.

“So you knew she was pregnant. How many months?” I asked.

“Almost two months. Nathan said it was a boy,”.

I gave a faint, cynical smile.

In my profession, you can’t tell the gender at two months.

But I didn’t correct her.

What I needed wasn’t a biology lesson, but the truth behind it all.

“Did Nathan mention anything about assets?” I continued.

Betty looked up, a flicker of hesitation in her eyes that vanished as quickly as it appeared.

“He said, ‘If you were hospitalized in serious condition or died from the reaction, the insurance would pay out a large sum.’ He and I could use it to take care of the grandchild,”.

I took a deep breath.

The air in the hospital was cold, but I felt a burning heat in my chest.

That was it.

No more doubts.

This was a plan.

A premeditated, calculated plan with an instructor and an executioner.

And if I hadn’t caught that strange scent tonight, if I had continued to trust Nathan as I always had, the person lying behind that ER door would have been me.

“Betty,” I said her name directly, no longer calling her mom.

“Do you realize what you’ve just admitted to?”

Betty grew frantic.

“I… I only told you. Don’t tell anyone. I’m an old woman, I can’t handle it,”.

I stood up and looked down at her slowly.

“I don’t need you to handle it. I need the truth. And this truth is not for me to keep for you,”.