Chapter 3Crowdfunding My Dying Mother‑in‑Law

When I got home from the hospital, the first thing I did was set my phone to Do Not Disturb so none of my relatives could get through.

Then, I brewed a cup of coffee, booted up my computer, and started digging into the mountain of work that had piled up over the past ten days. I also had to figure out how to win back the ten-million-dollar contract I'd turned down.

Jenna came home around dusk.

The moment she walked in, she hurled her bag onto the couch and yelled at me. Her face was flushed with rage. "Howard! What the hell were you thinking? How could you leave my mom all alone at the hospital? Her arm's still in a cast!"

I didn't bother to look up. My fingers kept flying across the keyboard as I replied flatly, "She isn't alone. She's got that wonderful son of hers."

"This isn't about Kyle! You're my husband!" Jenna barked, her voice shooting up an octave. "Can't you just humor her a little? She's getting old. She doesn't always watch what she says, but her heart's in the right place!"

"Her heart's in the right place?" I repeated, finally pausing my typing and swiveling my chair around to meet her gaze.

It was the first time I'd ever looked at her so coldly.

"Jenna, let me ask you something. At her birthday last year, Kyle pulled a stunt, and I ended up footing the 50-thousand-dollar bill. Have you forgotten that?

"When Kyle bought his new car, your mom took 100 thousand dollars from you, and in the blink of an eye, it turned into a generous gift from her devoted son. Have you forgotten that too?

"And that's not all…"

One by one, I laid out every grievance I'd swallowed and every injustice I'd endured over the past ten years, dumping them all out without holding back.

"All these years, has your mom ever treated you like her daughter, or me like her son-in-law?"

I stood up and stepped toward her, my voice ice-cold. "No. To her, we're nothing but Kyle's ATM—one that hands over whatever she wants and never gets to complain!"

Jenna stepped backward as I confronted her until her back was against the wall, and she had nothing left to say. Her face was deathly pale.

Tears began streaming down her face, but I didn't comfort her like I used to. I just felt utterly exhausted.

In the end, our argument simply fizzled out.

Jenna locked herself in the bedroom, and I spent the night in the study.

…

The next day, I found out I'd been added to a new family group chat called "One Big Happy Family (New)".

It was Fiona's handiwork, of course.

Sure enough, her first message was a close-up photo of her arm in a cast, accompanied by a crying emoji.

Right after that came a long, rambling sob story.

She hit all the usual notes: she'd sacrificed so much to raise her children, yet now that she was old with a broken arm, not a single person was there to care for her.

Worse still, her son-in-law had not only walked out on her but had enraged her so much that her chest hurt and she couldn't sleep. On and on her story went.

Every word dripped with emotion, as though written in tears. She'd cast herself as a lonely, pitiful mother-in-law bullied by a cruel son-in-law.

One after another, relatives in the chat chimed in. Some tried to smooth things over, others took her side, and a few tagged me directly to demand to know what was going on.

The collective pressure from the whole family settled over me like an invisible net.

The old me would have panicked. I'd have called immediately to apologize, then driven straight over to beg for forgiveness on my knees.

Instead, I just stared coldly at the screen, taking in their hypocritical drama without feeling a thing.

I stayed silent in the group chat, watching their performance.

At 8:00 pm on the dot, I dropped a glittering gold animated GIF into the chat that said, "Get well soon, Fiona!"

Then, I tagged Kyle. "Kyle, how's Fiona holding up today? Help me tell her that I'm just too busy with work. It's the thought that counts."

My devotion, like Kyle's, was worth a single GIF and nothing more.