“How do I look? A little rough around the edges, right? Don’t you dare say I’m ugly. Okay. I told Ethan to put some makeup on me, but the guy has no skills. I don’t know what he put on me, but I look like a clown.”
I broke down, my tears blurring his image on the screen. Daniel, even on the verge of death, you’re trying to make me laugh. You didn’t want me to see you suffer, so you used that bitter humor to hide the raw reality. Didn’t you know that seeing you try to be cheerful hurt me a thousand times more than if I had seen you cry, Laura?
His voice turned serious with no trace of a joke.
“I know you’re crying. Don’t cry. You get so ugly when you cry. Your eyes swell up like a pandas. And who’s going to look at you at work tomorrow? Come on. Stop it. Listen to me.”
He raised his skeletal hand and brought it toward the screen as if he wanted to reach through time and space to wipe away my tears. The gesture was so familiar that I instinctively leaned forward, wanting to rest my head on his hand, but I only touched the cold glass of the screen.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel said, his eyes looking directly at the camera, deep and sad. “I’m sorry for leaving you alone in this world. I promised to protect you for life, to grow old together until our teeth fell out. But I broke my promise. I’m a scoundrel. I’m leaving first. Don’t be mad at me, okay?”
I shook my head at the screen, saying through sobs, “I’m not mad. I’m not mad, Daniel. I’m just mad at how foolish you were. Why did you hide it from me? Why did you endure it all alone?”
In the video, Daniel began to cough violently, his whole body writhing. Ethan off camera tried to step in to help, but Daniel waved him away. He held it in, covered his mouth, and after a long moment of ragged breathing, he was able to continue.
“I don’t have much time. There are some important things I have to explain to you so you don’t have any more doubts. So you don’t hold a grudge against me,” the video continued.
Daniel took a sip of water from a glass Ethan handed him. He winced as he swallowed as if there were thorns in his throat. After a few seconds to compose himself, he looked steadily at the camera, his expression becoming serious and full of remorse.
“The first thing I want to explain is about that day at the courthouse,” Daniel said, his voice trembling. “Remember? It was pouring rain. I saw you drenched, shivering from cold and rage. When I threw the card at you, I felt my hand shaking. I had to hold back to grit my teeth to say those cruel words. I told you it was charity to get lost.”
Daniel looked down, avoiding the camera as if fleeing my accusatory gaze from the future.
“In reality, at that moment, what I wanted most was to run and hug you. I wanted to get on my knees and beg for your forgiveness, to tell you I loved you more than anything in the world. But I looked at myself. I looked at the medical report in my pocket. I couldn’t. If I hugged you, you’d feel how thin I was. You’d smell the medicine. And most importantly, if I softened at that moment, you would never agree to leave me.”
Daniel smiled sadly.
“I know your character, Laura. You’re very sentimental. If you knew I was dying, you’d sell everything. You’d quit your job to take care of me in the hospital. You’d watch me lose my hair, vomit blood, lose control of my body. It would traumatize you for life. I didn’t want that. I wanted the Daniel in your memory to always be the handsome, arrogant man. Even if he was a bastard, it was better than being a walking corpse.”
I listened to his every word as if I were swallowing hot coals. The raw, painful truth was being revealed through the weak voice of the deceased. He had played the villain perfectly, so well that he had deceived the woman he had shared a bed with for years. He accepted my undying hatred just to give me peace in the future.
“You know,” Daniel continued, his eyes glistening with tears. “When you turned and walked away in the rain, I watched you from the car in the rear view mirror. I felt like my heart was being ripped out. You bent down to pick up the card. I was both happy and hurt. Happy because you took it, which meant you would have a way out, but hurt because I knew that act had deeply wounded your pride. I’m sorry a thousand times. I’m sorry. I used the worst possible way to love you.”
I caressed his face on the screen, a gaunt face that held a love as immense as it was foolish. I wanted to tell him I had forgiven him long ago, ever since Ethan told me the truth, but he could no longer hear me. He was forever stuck in that moment, filled with remorse for having hurt me.
“I made a bet with Ethan,” Daniel said, his voice a little stronger. “I bet you wouldn’t spend the money right away. I trusted my wife’s pride and I knew that pride would help you stand on your own two feet in the tough times ahead. You would work twice as hard, three times as hard to prove me wrong. And that process would forge you. It would turn you from a spoiled, weak little girl into a strong, independent woman. That’s the greatest legacy I wanted to leave you. Not the money on the card.”
I nodded through my tears. He was right. He had won this painful bet. I matured through pain. I was strengthened by hatred. But the price of that maturity was too high. It was paid with his loneliness and his death. He taught me how to live without him, but not how to forget him.
Daniel paused in the video to breathe. His breath was a whistle like wind seeping through a crack. He put a hand to his chest to suppress an imminent pain and then looked at me with determination. He began to talk about what I had always wondered about, the $2 million he had hidden on that old card.
“You’re wondering why I lied about the amount, right?” Daniel smiled, a weak but mischievous smile. “I said there was $10,000 because I wanted to test you. I know my wife has immense pride. If $10,000 already seemed like a small, humiliating amount to you, how would you accept 2 million? If I had told you the real figure from the start, would you have been scared? Would you think I was involved in something illegal? Or would you have returned it immediately so as not to be a gold digger?”
I nodded unconsciously, tears still streaming down my face. He was right, too. 7 years ago, I was a young woman filled with pride. I would have rather starved than accept such a large sum from an unfaithful husband. It was the poulry amount of $10,000 combined with his dismissive attitude that wounded my self-esteem and made me keep the card as proof to motivate myself to fight.
“Those 2 million,” Daniels voice turned serious, “they’re all I had left after selling the company. I knew you wouldn’t use them right away, but I left them there. I wanted them to be your safety net. Life is unpredictable, Laura. No one knows what will happen tomorrow. If you get sick, if something happens to you, or if the man you’re with in the future doesn’t treat you well, this money will give you the option to choose.”
He looked deeply into the camera as if he wanted to burn every word into my mind.
“If you haven’t remarried, use this money to travel the world. Go to New Orleans like we promised. Go to the places you love. Eat the best food. Don’t save it. Life is short. And if you are already married, consider it the dowy I’m giving you. With money in hand, you’ll have standing. Your in-laws won’t dare to look down on you. You won’t have to live seeking anyone’s approval.”
I listened with a broken heart. Even in his last moments, as life was slipping away, he was only thinking about my future. He worried I would be looked down upon, that I wouldn’t have money, that I would suffer from poverty. He had prepared a perfect escape route for me, the greatest security a man can give the woman he loves.
“I know you’ll call me materialistic that you think money is everything,” Daniel smiled bitterly. “But Laura, when you’re facing death, you realize how important money is. It couldn’t buy my life, but it can buy your freedom and your peace of mind. I can’t be by your side to protect you anymore. So, let this money do it for me. Don’t refuse it. Don’t throw away my life’s work for some false pride. Promise me.”
