The day my father was diagnosed with liver cancer, I took out the cash gift I had received from my wedding to cover the emergency costs.

The bank teller counted the amount multiple times.

At that moment, I learned that out of the twenty thousand dollars cash gift Peter Grant’s family had given me a year ago, eighteen thousand dollars were counterfeit.

I went home with the fake money to demand an explanation. My mother-in-law, Deborah, stepped on my father’s picture and called him a worthless man who deserved to die.

Peter refused to divorce me. He demanded that I pay back the twenty thousand dollars in cash before he would agree to the divorce.

When I refused, he started a live stream. He held up my undergarments for tens of thousands of viewers to see.

“Look at what my wife is wearing. Is she trying to save her dad, or is she trying to seduce him?

“We’ve been married for a whole year, and she hasn’t even given me a single child. Now she wants a divorce? This is marriage fraud. She scammed us out of the cash gift!”

The comments section hurled insults at me. Someone threw dung on our front porch. Someone even edited my family’s faces onto old-fashioned funeral portraits and posted them online.

The whole internet said my family deserved to die.

What they did not know was that when that money was put into the safe, the whole thing had been caught on camera. The security seals on the cash bundles were covered in Peter’s family’s fingerprints.

They also did not know that I had picked up the wrong medical report.

The one with cancer was not my father. It was actually Deborah.

Later, Peter knelt on the floor begging me to give him some money to save his mother.

I kicked his hand away and said coldly, “I still have your counterfeit eighteen thousand dollars. I’ll give it all back to you. Is that enough to cremate your mother?”

“Ma’am, I’ve counted these twice. Out of your twenty thousand dollars, only the top two thousand are real. The rest are counterfeit.”

I stood at the counter, clutching the receipt in my hand.

My mind was buzzing.

“This money is a cash gift from my wedding. How could there be counterfeit?”

My hands began to tremble.

My father, Bryan Roche, was still lying in the hospital. He needed the money for the surgery.

But the bank teller had counted it twice in front of me.

It was a total of eighteen thousand dollars in counterfeit bills.

I had been married to Peter Grant for one year.

The cash gift was twenty thousand dollars in total.

We had agreed back then to keep the money untouched and only take it out when we needed it urgently.

My father had been diagnosed with early-stage liver cancer.

The doctor said surgery plus chemotherapy would cost at least thirty thousand dollars in total.

My mother and I added up all the money we had at home.

We were still short by eighteen thousand dollars.

That was when I remembered the cash gift I got from the wedding.

I took it out of the bank safe deposit box that same night.

I went to the bank first thing in the morning.

That was when the teller told me that only two thousand dollars of it was authentic.

My mind was still in a fog when I took a cab home.

Before I even opened the door, I heard Peter’s mother, Deborah’s voice.

“If you ask me, we can’t put this off. We need to figure things out now.

“Crematorium prices change every single day. Wait one more day, and you’re paying a few hundred dollars more.”

I stood outside the door with my hands holding the doorknob.

“I asked around. That place across town is expensive. It’s over six thousand dollars. But the one near the highway is cheap. It’s about a thousand eight hundred dollars for the whole package. The only downside is no wake or service. You get the ashes in a box.”

“Three thousand eight hundred dollars is fine. That person’s dead already. What’s the point of a wake or service?”

“Mom, what are you two talking about?”

It was Peter’s younger sister, Priscilla.

“We’re talking about something serious here. Didn’t Riley’s dad get hospitalized for a liver problem? I heard it’s pretty bad. That kind of problem moves fast. One minute he’s here, the next he’ll be gone. We need to get ahead of this. Find a time to send him to the crematorium. Otherwise, keeping up with his treatments is just burning money.”

“Tell me about it,” his second aunt, Tracy, chimed in.

“Riley’s got bad luck, too, for getting stuck with a father like that. Think about it. She’s been married to Peter for a year now, but there’s no sign of a baby. She can’t even have one kid. And now her dad is sick. Isn’t that just bringing trouble to our family?”

I stood at the door, hearing these hurtful words.

My father was still alive. He was still being treated in the hospital. After surgery, there was a good chance he would fully recover.

But there they were, sitting together and discussing which funeral home offered a better deal for my father so casually.

“Oh, come on. Stop talking. Riley might hear you. That’s not good,” Priscilla said.

“So what if she hears me? Am I lying? Her dad has been diagnosed with liver cancer. Sure, it’s at the early stage, but it’s going to happen sooner or later. If he dies sooner, at least we won’t waste money.”

Deborah paused, then continued, “Besides, she’s been married into our family for a year now. Perhaps it’s because her dad just won’t die, so my future grandson finds him disgusting and refuses to show up.”

I could not hold back anymore. I kicked the front door wide open.

In the living room sat a circle of people: Deborah, Tracy, Priscilla, his youngest aunt Katie, and a few other relatives I did not recognize.

The coffee table had a bowl of potato chips and a bag of pretzels. The floor was covered in crumbs.

They went silent instantly when they saw me.

Deborah was the first to react.

She smiled and said, “Oh, Riley, you’re back? Why didn’t you knock? You scared me.”

“I went to the bank today.

“When we got married, you gave me a twenty-thousand-dollar cash wedding gift. I took it out today. The bank said only two thousand dollars of it was real. The other eighteen thousand dollars were all counterfeit.”

The living room fell completely silent upon hearing my words.

The smile on Deborah’s face disappeared.

“How could our family’s cash gift possibly be fake? Are you trying to scam us?”

I stared at Deborah.

“The bank ran it through verification twice. It’s undeniably fake.”

“The cash gift we gave you was a real twenty thousand dollars. How did it turn fake once it’s in your hands? You two have been married for a whole year. Who’s to say your family didn’t swap it out?”

I clenched my fists.

“The money came from you. I never touched it. Today was the first time I took it out. That’s when I found out it was fake.”

Deborah stood up and raised her voice, “Once the money is given to you, it’s yours. Now you’re blaming us? That doesn’t make any sense.”

I took a deep breath. I did not want to argue with her.

“When is Peter coming back?”

“Talking to him won’t do you any good anyway. He doesn’t handle the money.”

“I want a divorce.”

The living room went quiet again. It then turned chaotic.

“You think you can just say divorce and that’s it? You’ve been married into our family for a year. You ate our food. You lived under our roof, and now you’re asking for a divorce?”

“You’ve been married for a whole year and haven’t even had a single kid. Now you want a divorce. Are you trying to scam us out of the cash gift?”

Tracy pointed and yelled at me, “One year of marriage with no baby. Now a divorce. Are you giving back the cash gift or not? Your family sure knows how to nickel and dime people.”

Deborah rushed to the edge of the living room and ripped down the family portrait I had hung on the wall.

She stuck out her foot and stomped repeatedly on my father’s face in the photo.

“Your father deserves to be sick. Your mother won’t last long either. Your whole family was just born to die young.

“Here I was, being nice enough to help you check out crematoriums. You broke, worthless piece of trash. After your parents die, just throw their bodies in a ditch and let the coyotes have them.

“Instead of a tombstone, you can just visit the coyotes instead. After all, they handled your father’s funeral arrangements for you. Not you.”

I snapped when I heard that.

I lunged forward, but Priscilla blocked me.

“Riley, don’t get upset. My mom didn’t mean it like that.”

I pushed her aside and stared at Deborah.

“I dare you to say it again.”

Seeing my sharp gaze, she took a step back.

She put on a bold expression and said, “Fine, I’ll say it again. Your parents were born to die young. Why bother treating liver cancer? It’s such a waste of money.

“If you’re such a good daughter, go die along with your parents, then.”

I raised my hand and was about to slap her, but someone grabbed my hand from behind.

It was Peter.

“What are you doing?”

He let go of my hand and glanced at the people in the living room.

“What’s all the yelling about?”

“Remember the twenty thousand dollars cash gift you gave me? Only two thousand of it was real. The other eighteen thousand was all counterfeit.

“Peter, are you aware of that?”

He avoided my gaze for a moment.

It was quick, but I noticed it.

“My parents gave you that money. How could they possibly hand out fake cash?”

“Your mother just said I tricked you into marriage and that my dad deserved to be sick. Did you hear that?”

He was silent for a few seconds.

“You know my mother has a temper. Don’t take what she says to heart.”

Do not take what she said to heart?

She had cursed my father to die, and he was telling me not to take it to heart?

I looked at him. For a moment, Peter felt frighteningly unfamiliar.

“I want a divorce. We’ll settle the cash gift later.”

His expression changed.

“Fine, we can divorce. But you have to return the money.”

“Return what? Your family gave me fake money. What am I supposed to return it with?”

“Back when I gave it to you, you said it was real. Now you’re calling it fake. Who knows if your own family swapped it out?

“You want a divorce? I don’t have a problem with that. But you have to return the full amount exactly as given. Twenty thousand dollars. Not one cent less.”

“What you gave me was counterfeit. Eighteen thousand dollars of fake money! And you expect me to pay back twenty thousand dollars?”

“That’s your problem.”

He looked at me and added, “I know your dad is sick and you’re desperate for money. But so what? That’s your dad, not mine. If you want to save him, then use your money. That cash gift is my family’s money. If you don’t have the money, then your dad deserves to die.”

How could he say what he said like it was nothing?

I stared at him as tears fell from my eyes.

When he saw me crying, he did not feel a thing.

“You want a divorce? Fine. Give the money back. Every single cent. When I go to the bank to count it, if there’s even one fake bill, then you have to have a child for my family as compensation.”

My heart sank when I heard that.

Did he think I was a baby-making machine?

“Dream on.”

I picked up my bag and turned to walk away.

Just then, Deborah spoke.

“Where do you think you’re going? I finally see that you checked out of this marriage a long time ago after going into your bedroom. A cheating woman like you deserves to walk away with nothing.”

I turned to look at her. She had gone to my bedroom to take a few pieces of my nightgowns.

She unfolded them one by one mockingly.

“My son has been away on a business trip for a whole month. But you bought all these revealing nightclothes to wear at home. Who are you trying to seduce?

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. This nightgown doesn’t even cover your thighs. I just can’t figure it out. Who are you dressing up for at home?

“You said you’re a loyal daughter. Take a look at your mom. She looks old and worn-out.

“You wouldn’t be dressing up for your dad, would you?”

The aunts and other female relatives around, even Peter, started looking at me with disgust.

I slammed the door shut. When I went downstairs, my legs felt weak. I held the railing and moved down step by step.

When I reached the bottom, I squatted by the flower bed and cried. I cried so hard that my whole body shook.

By the time I arrived at the hospital, it was already evening.

My mother was sitting outside the hospital room, leaning against the wall and fast asleep.

I did not wake her up. I sat down next to her.

I closed my eyes as my mind recalled the day’s events.

The counterfeit money. The divorce. Deborah and Peter’s words.

Every word they said felt like a knife stabbing into my heart.

I did not know how long had passed when my phone buzzed.

It was a notification.

I opened it and saw that it was Peter’s livestream.

He was in the living room at home, facing his phone camera. His eyes were red, as if from crying. He looked grief-stricken.

“Guys, I really didn’t think she would be like this. We’ve been married for a year. I gave her good food and a comfortable life. She won’t even give me one kid. Now her dad is sick, and she wants to divorce me. She also wants to take the money my family gave her during our wedding.”

He put my photo on the screen. It was a photo of me lying on the couch at home, scrolling through my phone.

“Look at her. This is what she’s like at home. She doesn’t do any housework. All she does is lie around every day and scroll on her phone. I don’t even know why I married her.

“Whenever a guy walks by our front door, her eyes lock straight onto his lower body. How shameless could she be?

“What’s even scarier is she keeps saying she wants to take care of her dad and save her dad. But behind my back, when I’m not home, she puts on sexy nightgowns to go take care of him. Guys, I honestly don’t know what to do anymore.”

The comments popped up on the screen.

[You can tell just by looking at her. She’s no good.]

[She’s just running a marriage scam, isn’t she?]

[Take the money back. Giving it to her would be a waste.]

Peter played another clip from the security camera.

It was the part where I came home yesterday, yelled at Deborah, and told him I wanted a divorce.

In the video, I was standing in the living room. My voice was very loud, and I looked very agitated.

But he had cut out the earlier part where Deborah cursed at my parents.

He only kept the part where I said I wanted a divorce.

The camera then turned to the nightgowns I had left at home.

“Guys, take a look. What decent woman wears a nightgown this short?”

But those were just normal nightgowns. It was so hot in the summer. Who would wear long ones?

The comments became even more vicious.

[Is this woman out of her mind?]

[Divorce her already. Get your money back!]

[You can’t keep a woman like this. Who knows if she’s seeing someone else?]

Peter looked at the comments and wiped the corner of his eye.

“I just feel so wronged. I’ve been so good to her. Why is she doing this to me? Her parents got sick, and I even tried to help figure things out. But she insists on divorcing me. What can I do?”

The comments flooded the screen.

[Make her return the money. She has to!]

[Not one cent less.]

[We’ve got your back. Sue her for marriage fraud.]

I turned off my phone. My hands were shaking.

The hallway was very quiet. My mother was still asleep. My father was in his hospital room. I did not know whether he was awake or asleep.

I leaned against the wall as I cried silently.

After a while, my phone vibrated again.

It was a text from Peter.

[Have you made up your mind yet? When are you giving the money back?]

I stared at the text and felt a wave of nausea.

[Your dad’s illness is incurable. Don’t waste the money. Just come home and live a normal life. That’s better than anything.]

After a few minutes, he texted me again.

[If you really can’t come up with the money, that’s fine too. You can just agree to have a few kids for me, and we’ll forget about the cash gift. I won’t even go after you for the eighteen thousand in fake bills. How about that? I’m being pretty generous, right?]

A chill ran down my spine when I read the message.

He was offering me a handout.

A handout made of counterfeit cash.

And the catch was that he wanted a baby in exchange.

I stared at the ceiling as my mind went blank.

Right at that moment, the door to the hospital room opened.

My father stood at the door, wearing a patient gown. He was holding up an IV pole.

“Dad? What are you doing out of bed?”

He did not speak. He just walked over and sat down next to me.

“Your mother is asleep. Don’t wake her.”

I looked at him. My eyes welled up.

“Dad...”

“I heard everything.”

I was stunned.

“What?”

“I was awake when you watched the livestream. The door wasn’t shut all the way. I heard everything.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.

He reached out and patted the back of my hand.

“Back when you got that cash gift, your mother and I deposited it straight into the bank’s safety deposit box.

“When we put it in the safety deposit box, there was a security camera. There were receipts. The seals had your mother’s and my fingerprints on them. We have the truth on our side. We don’t have to be afraid of him.”

Just then, a nurse emerged and interrupted us.

“Where is Deborah Grant? She’s already in the early stages of liver cancer, and she still isn’t getting herself to the hospital? Weren’t the family members notified to pay the fees?”

Deborah Grant. That was Peter’s mother.

I took the form the nurse handed me with trembling hands. Only then did I realize that I had picked up the wrong diagnosis sheet earlier.

The one who had liver cancer was actually Deborah. It had not been my father.