I listened as if someone were strangling my heart. I imagine Daniel in that luxury car appearing like an unfaithful man on the outside, but inside with a body ravaged by disease and a heart bleeding for me. He wore that thick black trench coat, not to look elegant, but to hide the tremors of pain to conceal his emaciated body. He smoked non-stop, not out of addiction, but perhaps so the bitter taste of smoke would mask the metallic taste of blood in his throat.
“He acted too well, didn’t he?” Ethan looked at me, his eyes full of pain. “He fooled you. He fooled everyone. Everyone insulted him, called him a social climber, a user, and he took it all. He said he’d rather carry a bad reputation forever than see you suffer. He used his honor as a man to buy your freedom. You hated him for seven years, but he loved you until his last breath.”
I stood there paralyzed, feeling like the most foolish person in the world. I saw what he wanted me to see. I believed what he wanted me to believe, never looking beyond into his eyes to see the immense pain they held.
A $500 performance cost seven years of my youth and his entire life. If only I had been more insistent that day, if I hadn’t turned away immediately out of pride, if I had been perceptive enough to notice the strangeness of his actions. But life has no ifonies. Everything was written according to the tragic script Daniel had created, and I was the naive protagonist who played her part perfectly until the end, knowing nothing.
Ethan stubbed out his third cigarette in the already full ashtray. The smoke swirled and dissipated like Daniel’s short life. I remained silent, but a storm was raging inside me. The question about the $2 million was still buzzing in my head, a figure too large, almost illogical for a growing company that still needed working capital like Daniels at the time.
Ethan read the doubt in my eyes. He smiled bitterly, a pained, crooked smile.
“You’re wondering where the money came from, aren’t you, Laura? Do you know what vultures do when a lion is wounded on the savannah?”
I shook my head, a lump in my throat preventing me from speaking. Ethan continued, his voice turning grally like the grinding of stones.
“They swoop in to devour it. As soon as Daniel knew he didn’t have much time left, his first decision wasn’t to check into a hospital, but to sell the company. It was his baby, the one he had built from scratch his sweat and tears, his entire youth.”
Ethan recounted how Daniel needed cash urgently, and most importantly, it had to be clean money, legally transferred so I could use it without any legal trouble in the future. The rumor that Daniel wanted to sell spread, and investors descended like hungry beasts. They didn’t care about the company’s real value, only that Daniel needed the money now. The competitors Daniel had once defeated, the ones who smiled and shook his hand at parties, now came back to squeeze him dry.
“He accepted everything,” Ethan said, rage glinting in his eyes as he recalled the scene. “The company was really worth almost $4 million, but they lowballed him down to two and a half. Daniel didn’t haggle over a single word. He had only one condition, immediate cash payment into the fiduciary account. He signed the contract to sell his creation with a hand that trembled so much he could barely hold the pen, having to cover his mouth with a handkerchief from time to time to cough.”
I listened as if a thousand needles were piercing my heart. I remembered reading in the business section back then that the company had changed hands. I even laughed with disdain, thinking that greedy Daniel had sold it to go enjoy life with his mistress. I had no idea that behind that trembling signature was a silent sacrifice. He sold his pride, his career, the honor of a businessman to secure the financial future of the woman he was about to abandon.
Ethan looked at me, his eyes boring into my soul.
“He used half a million to pay the employees salaries, settle debts, and give his parents something for their old age. The remaining 2 million, he put it all on that card for you. He said he owed you a complete home in this life. He owed you children, so he was paying you back with money. Even though he knew money can’t buy happiness, at least it would mean you wouldn’t have to bow your head to anyone because of poverty.”
I buried my face in my hands, tears soaking my fingers. I had accused him of being callous, cruel, but his cruelty was filled with love. He had planned everything, cleaning up any trace, enduring the humiliation of his rivals, just to make sure that when I held that card, I would be the freest and richest woman. And he accepted walking away with empty hands, carrying a bad reputation and a physical pain no one knew about.
In the empty diner, the melancholic music of a singer songwriter played from a speaker in the corner, making the atmosphere even more somber. Ethan took a sip of his black coffee. The bitterness seemed to wake him up to continue the unfinished story. He looked at me with a certain curiosity inside.
“Actually, that day he and I made a bet, a bet I lost spectacularly, and he won, but with a broken heart.”
I lifted my swollen eyes to Ethan, my voice cracking. A bet? You bet on my divorce?
“Not on the divorce, but on the card?” Ethan shook his head, his voice tinged with sadness. “When he gave you the card, I tried to stop him. I told him giving it to you like that was a humiliation. That you would never accept it or that you’d pick it up just to throw it back at him. Your pride is bigger than a cathedral. I told him, ‘Your dignity is everything. How could you accept money from the man who betrayed you?’”
I fell silent. Ethan was right. At that moment, my dignity was the only thing I had to hold on to. If Daniel had given me the money kindly, I probably would have thrown it in his face, but he tossed it on the ground. He used the most hurtful words to provoke me, causing me to keep it as a trophy of my hatred.
Ethan continued.
“Daniel laughed and told me, ‘You don’t know my wife. Laura is stubborn, but she’s also very practical. I have to make her hate me. Hate me so much that she’ll want to keep that card to rub it in my face someday. But I’ll bet you anything, she won’t spend a single scent. She’ll lock it away. She’ll starve. She’ll take a job washing dishes before she touches a dime of this bastard husband’s money.’”
Did he? Did he really say that? I stammered, feeling a sharp pain in my chest. He knew me perfectly. He knew my strong yet contradictory character.
“Yes, that’s what he said.” Ethan nodded. “He said that money wasn’t for you to waste right away. It was the ultimate safety net. He wanted you to manage on your own, to stumble and get back up, to mature. Only when you were truly backed into a corner when life had you cornered would you remember the card. And at that moment, that money would be your savior, not a psychological burden.”
I thought back over the last seven years, the countless times I was broke, the times I picked up the card and put it down again. I thought I was doing it to maintain my dignity, to show Daniel I didn’t need him. But in reality, I was just following the path he had laid out for me. He wanted me to be strong to stand on my own two feet. But he also feared I would fall. So he had secretly placed a soft cushion at the end of the road.
“I lost.” Ethan smiled bitterly. “I thought you’d spend the money or throw the card away, but you kept it for seven years, just as he predicted. He won, but the price was too high. He gambled with your misunderstanding and his own loneliness. Sometimes I’d ask him, ‘And what if Laura really does throw the card away?’ He would just smile sadly and say, ‘Then that’s my bad luck and she’ll have her own destiny. God will provide. I’m sure she won’t starve.’”
Hearing this, I couldn’t hold back and broke down crying. Daniel, you idiot. The biggest con man in the world. You bet a whole fortune, all your love, on a game whose outcome you would never see. You trusted my pride more than I trusted it myself. I thought I was getting revenge on you by living in misery, but in reality, I was just proving you right that you loved me and knew me deeply.
Leaving the diner, Ethan took me to an old apartment building on the outskirts, just a block from where I had lived in a rented room 7 years ago. yellowed walls covered in moss, iron bars on the windows jutting out chaotically, the cry of a child, the cough of an old man drifting from the small windows. I walked down a dark, damp hallway. The smell of leftover food mixed with mildew turned my stomach.
“Daniel lived here?” I asked Ethan, unable to believe my eyes. A man who had lived in a suburban house, driven luxury cars, and worn designer clothes like Daniel. How could he endure such a cramped and miserable place?
Ethan didn’t turn around, just silently climbed the chipped steps.
“He moved here right after the divorce. He sold all his personal belongings, only keeping some old clothes. He said it was cheap here, that every dollar saved counted. And besides, it was close to you.”
My heart sank. Close to me. So for seven years, while I thought he was in some paradise with his mistress, he was hiding in a dark corner right next to me. The geographical distance was only a few hundred yards. But the distance of misunderstanding was thousands of miles.
“I still rent this apartment. I pay every month to keep it just as it was,” Ethan said, stopping in front of a peeling blue wooden door with a rusty lock. “I can’t bring myself to empty it because his last breaths are in here. He forbade me from telling anyone, especially you. He was afraid that if you saw him living like a rat, it would traumatize you for life.”
