Chapter 1My Discounted Husband

My husband always told me he loved me enough to buy me a one-carat diamond ring.

But whenever our family actually needed money, his love came with a discount.

When our son started preschool, the tuition was $4,800. He only transferred me $3,000.

When the $3,500 rent was due at the end of the month, he sent $2,500.

I put up with it until the night our three-year-old son spiked a massive fever and went into convulsions.

The emergency room demanded a $5,000 deposit before they would admit him to the pediatric ICU. Like clockwork, my husband only transferred $3,000.

"Figure out the rest yourself," he told me.

I broke down, begging him over the phone.

All I got in return was a cold sigh. "Sarah, you are being completely unreasonable."

The line went dead. There was no further response.

He left me alone in the sterile hospital corridor, holding my burning, seizing child, drowning in absolute despair.

* * *

"Ma'am! If you don't pay the deposit right now, I have to take him off the monitors!"

The nurse's voice echoed down the empty, fluorescent-lit hallway.

I looked down at little Noah in my arms. His lips had faded from a terrifying purple to a sickly, ashen gray. His tiny fingers weren't even gripping my shirt anymore, and his seizures had grown weaker.

That weakness was far more terrifying than the violent shaking.

Instinctively, I glanced down at my left ring finger.

That one-carat diamond caught the harsh hospital lights, glittering blindingly.

He always said this was the absolute best thing he could ever give me.

I ripped the ring off my finger, hoisted my son higher against my chest, and sprinted out the sliding doors of the ER.

Two blocks east of the hospital, the neon sign of a 24-hour pawn and jewelry exchange was still buzzing.

I crashed through the doors, holding my fever-hot boy. The owner barely looked up from his phone.

"Please, how much can I get for this ring? It's an emergency."

He took it, screwed a jeweler's loupe into his eye, flipped it over for maybe five seconds, and tossed it onto the glass counter.

"Look, lady. This isn't a diamond."

I froze.

"That's impossible. It's a full carat. My husband paid ten thousand dollars for it."

"It's moissanite," the owner said flatly. "Synthetic. Wholesale price is about thirty bucks. Factor in the cheap 18-karat gold-plated band, and the whole thing is worth maybe fifty dollars on a good day. You don't believe me, take it to any appraiser in town."

I stood perfectly still in front of that counter. My baby was burning up with a 105-degree fever against my chest, and I just stared at the ring.

Fifty dollars.

He said he loved me. He said he spared no expense for my ring.

A thirty-dollar piece of wholesale glass.

Even his grandest gesture of love was heavily discounted.

"Hey, lady? You okay? Your kid's color looks really bad."

The owner's voice snapped me back to reality. I shoved the useless metal into my pocket, turned around, and ran back into the night.

By the time I reached the ER lobby, my legs were giving out. It wasn't physical exhaustion. It was the feeling of being hollowed out, completely scraped clean from the inside.

My phone buzzed. It was my mother.

"Mom, can you please Zelle me two thousand dollars? Noah is having febrile seizures. We're in the ER and I'm short on the deposit."

A two-second pause on the line.

"Where's Carter?"

"He sent three thousand. It's not enough."

"Sarah, your husband makes a great living. He bought you that huge diamond, and you're telling me you don't have enough money?"

"Mom, please..."

"Your brother's wife has been married for three years and hasn't asked us for a single dime. Look at you. Calling me in the middle of the night just to beg for cash."

"Mom, Noah is convulsing! I'm not making this up!"

"Every kid shakes a little when they get a fever. When you were little and got a fever, I gave you some Tylenol and chicken soup and you were fine. You mothers today are just too dramatic."

I hung up on her.

The plastic chairs in the ER waiting room were mostly empty. In the corner sat a woman in her early thirties, holding a sleeping boy about four years old. She was using a wet cotton swab to moisten her son's cracked lips.

She had been watching me the entire time.

I ignored her and opened my contacts. I scrolled from A to Z, making three calls.

The first went straight to voicemail. The second friend said things were tight this month. The third listened to me panic, muttered that two grand wasn't exactly pocket change, and made an excuse to hang up.

"Excuse me. Are you short two thousand for the deposit?"

I looked up. It was the woman from the corner.

"I... I don't even know you."

"My name is Rachel," she said softly. "Give me your Venmo. I'll send it right now."

"I can't take your money."

"If you waste time being polite, your kid might not make it."

Right on cue, Noah's tiny body seized against mine again.

I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper, and pulled up my app.

Two thousand dollars hit my account three seconds later.

I rushed the billing window, slamming down my debit card to pay the exact five-thousand-dollar deposit. Three thousand from a husband I had known for years, and two thousand from a stranger I had known for ten minutes.

The nurses immediately swarmed Noah, rushing him through the double doors into the pediatric intensive care unit. Before the doors swung shut, one nurse looked back at me.

"A few minutes later and there would have been brain damage."

The doors locked with a heavy click.

I stood at the glass window, watching them hook my baby up to a maze of tubes. The green line on the EKG monitor spiked and dipped.

In my pocket, that fifty-dollar piece of fake jewelry dug into my thigh.

Rachel appeared beside me quietly. She crouched down slightly to meet my eye level and handed me a bottle of cold water.

"Thank you," I whispered, my hands shaking as I took it. "I will pay you back as soon as humanly possible."

She waved off the promise, staring intently into my eyes. Then she asked a question that made my blood run cold.

"Your husband... does he always give you a discount whenever he sends you money?"