I dragged my feet onto the muddy street.
It was dark, cold, and empty.
Only thunder and Leo’s crying.
We walked without a destination, tears and rainwater mixing on my face.
A luxury sedan pulled up in front of the apartment.
A woman stepped out with an umbrella.
It was Bella.
She saw me soaked to the bone on the side of the road and smiled smugly.
“Oh, so this is the wife?” Bella asked Mark, who had come out to greet her.
“How pathetic. Like a drowned rat.”
Mark wrapped an arm around Bella’s waist.
“Don’t look, darling. You’ll dirty your eyes. Let’s go inside.”
They went into the warm apartment, leaving us in the storm.
That night, we found shelter in an empty bus stop.
Leo had a high fever.
His body burned.
I held him all night, trying to transfer my body heat to him.
In the darkness of that bus shelter, watching the relentless rain, I made a vow.
I held Leo’s small hand.
“Listen to me, honey. Today, we were humiliated. Today, we were thrown away.”
“But I promise you—I swear to God—one day, the man who threw us away will be crawling at your feet.”
“I will do anything. I will work until my bones break. You will become a great man.”
“You will become a doctor who can heal people—unlike your father, whose soul is sick.”
Leo looked at me with listless eyes.
He nodded weakly.
“Yes, Mommy. Leo wants to be a doctor. Leo wants to heal Leo’s leg so he can take care of Mommy.”
We cried together under the leaking roof of that bus shelter.
It was the lowest point of my life.
But it was also the turning point.
The pain of that night turned into a fire that never went out—a fire that fueled my spirit for eighteen years.
And now that fire was ready to burn the one who lit it.
I stepped out of the elevator on the third floor.
This floor was much quieter than the bustling main lobby.
This was the administrative and medical records center.
White fluorescent lights illuminated a long hallway flanked by metal shelves and frosted glass doors.
The air was cool and dry, smelling of old paper and printer ink.
My destination was the room at the end of the hall: the head of medical administration’s office.
But before I got there, a young nurse in a light-blue uniform stopped me.
It was Sarah—one of our most trusted people in the hospital.
Her face looked tense.
She clutched a thick red folder to her chest.
“Good morning, Mrs. Vance,” she greeted me politely.
She dipped her head slightly—genuine respect, not fear.
“Morning, Sarah,” I replied. “Is the file ready?”
Sarah nodded quickly.
She looked left and right, making sure no one else could hear.
“Yes, ma’am. I just picked it up from registration. The patient’s data was entered ten minutes ago.”
I held out my hand.
Sarah handed me the red folder.
It felt heavy.
As heavy as the sins of its owner.
“Thank you, Sarah. You can go back to your work. Don’t let anyone know I have this file,” I ordered.
“Of course, ma’am—but there’s one more thing,” Sarah said hesitantly.
“What is it?”
“This patient… a Mr. Mark Peterson.”
Sarah said the name with a note of dislike.
“He caused a scene at the registration desk earlier. He yelled at our staff because he thought the process was too slow.”
“He claimed to know the hospital director, but there’s no record of him in our VIP system.”
I smirked.
Old habits die hard.
Mark always thought he was a king—even when he had no castle.
“Let it be, Sarah. Consider it some pre-show entertainment. Go back to your post.”
Sarah nodded and hurried away.
I took the folder into a small, empty conference room.
I sat in a swivel chair and placed the folder on the gleaming glass table.
My heart pounded—not with fear, but with anticipation.
This was the moment I had been waiting for.
The moment I could look into the guts of my ex-husband’s life without him knowing.
I opened the folder slowly.
The first page was his personal data.
Name: Mark Peterson.
Age: 48.
Occupation: self-employed.
Listed as unstable.
Address: a rented unit in a run-down part of town.
I knew that area.
A flood-prone neighborhood—worlds away from the lavish house he used to boast about when he kicked me out.
My eyes moved to the second page.
Medical history.
I read line by line the diagnosis from the ER doctor who had seen him last week before referring him here.
The doctor’s handwriting was cursive, but I was used to reading it.
Primary diagnosis: uncontrolled type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Complications: diabetic nephropathy.
End-stage renal disease, stage 5.
Kidney failure.
Physical condition: gangrenous wound on the left foot.
Necrosis of the fourth and fifth toes.
I was stunned.
Stage five.
Kidney failure.
That meant his kidneys had completely shut down.
Toxins built up in his blood every second.
The only way to survive was lifelong dialysis—or a kidney transplant.
And seeing the condition of his rotting foot, he was also at risk of amputation.
What a deadly irony.
He used to mock my son for his imperfect leg.
He called Leo “the one with the twisted leg.”
He was disgusted by the way my son walked.
Now his own foot was rotting.
His own foot was eating away at his life.
God has a dark but fair sense of humor.
Karma doesn’t arrive by express mail, but it always arrives on time.
I turned to the next page.
This was the most interesting part: the financial section, written in big red ink.
No insurance.
ACA plan inactive.
I frowned.
Mark used to work for a large corporation.
He always bragged about his premium health insurance.
Why did he have no coverage now?
I read the additional notes from the administrative staff.
Patient has defaulted on insurance premiums for 5 years.
Private insurance policy terminated due to lapse.
Patient claims to have no cash funds for inpatient deposit.
I leaned back.
The bigger picture became clear.
Mark was broke.
Utterly, completely broke.
Where did all the money go?
Where did the marital assets go—the ones that should have been mine and Leo’s, but that he stole completely?
The answer was in the social status attachment.