His Automated Reply Cost Him His Wife Chapter 20

His Automated Reply Cost Him His Wife Chapter 20

In the end, it was the landlord, coming to collect rent, who found Ethan collapsed in a pool of blood.

The ambulance took him to UCSF Medical Center. Three years earlier, it was in this same hospital that I had woken up alone after my surgery.

The doctors did everything they could, but the outcome was irreversible.

“Acute liver failure, accompanied by multiple organ damage,” the doctor said, holding the report.

Ethan lay in the hospital bed, listening to his death sentence. An eerie, tragic smile appeared on his face.

“No need to waste medical resources,” he rasped. He called his sister and asked her to contact a lawyer. Not to appeal his diagnosis, but to settle his affairs.

When the lawyer arrived, Ethan already looked like a withered specimen, drained of life.

With his ruined hand, the one still pierced by an IV needle, he tremblingly accepted the final divorce agreement. On the last page, he waived all rights to any division of marital assets.

“Sell all company shares and assets under my name,” he gasped, every word a struggle. “And in my and Nora’s… in our unborn child’s name, establish a special trust fund at UCSF for pediatric illnesses.”

The lawyer’s pen flew across the notepad, not daring to look up.

Last came a new Advance Directive.

Using all his strength, he crossed out my name in the section for “emergency contact and medical decision-making agent” and signed his sister’s name instead.

That simple action seemed to weigh more than all the other documents combined. He was finally, in legal terms, admitting that he was no longer my responsibility.

He placed all the signed documents into an envelope and handed it to the lawyer. His eyes were empty, yet they held a resolve he had never shown before.

“Please make sure her lawyer gives these to her.”