The Ultimate Betrayal

by Kimberla Lawson Roby

  Chapter 47

  Melanie heard beeping monitors and slowly opened her eyes, trying to focus them. Her vision was blurred, but the more she blinked, the clearer her surroundings became. First she saw a ceiling and a bright light, then she looked to her right and saw a salt-and-pepper-haired nurse standing over her, smiling.

  “Melanie? Do you know where you are?”

  “I’m assuming the hospital.”

  “That’s right. How are you feeling? Are you having any pain?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Your parents are here, but I’ll be back to check on you, okay?”

  Melanie watched the woman leave and then looked to her left. She wasn’t surprised to see her father, but when she noticed her mother she wondered if she was hallucinating.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” Andrew said.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Tired.”

  “You really scared us this time,” Gladys said. “You have got to start taking better care of yourself.”

  Melanie wasn’t sure how to take her mother’s caring words, because rarely were they sincere.

  “What happened to me?”

  “Don’t you remember us being on the phone?” Andrew said.

  “No.”

  “Well, we were talking and all of a sudden you sounded confused. You were saying things that didn’t make sense.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  Andrew looked at his watch. “Maybe three hours or so. Oh, and we called the pastor, and he said he’ll be praying for you.”

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “They’re still running tests, but when he was in a little while ago he told us that your potassium and sodium were down to life-threatening levels,” her father said. “Your heart rate was sky high, too, and the rhythm was off. He said they’ll be doing an ultrasound on your heart tomorrow morning.”

  “Is it Dr. Romalati?” Melanie asked, not wanting to hear any more of what her father was saying.

  “No, you have a different one this time. He’s just as nice, though.”

  “They say you’re anorexic,” her mother blurted out. “That you likely haven’t eaten in days.”

  “I’ve had a lot going on.”

  “But you still need to eat,” Andrew said. “You can’t go on like this. If you keep this up, the doctor says, you’ll be a lot worse off than you are now. He says you’ll die.”

  Melanie looked away from her parents.

  “She got this thing from you,” Andrew said to Gladys, and Melanie glanced back at them.

  Gladys frowned. “Excuse me? What kinda fool talk is that?”

  “You’ve got the same thing. The first year we were married, you used to have some of these same health problems. But somehow you learned how to eat just enough to stay thin and not get sick anymore. You’re still anorexic, though, if you ask me. And you pushed this child here to lose so much weight, she didn’t know how to stop.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Gladys said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Stay in denial all you want, but I’m tired of being quiet. Melanie needs help, and I’m gonna see that she gets it. I’ll tell everything if I have to. Even about that year you made yourself throw up after every meal. You were in the hospital for a whole week behind that.”

  Melanie stared at them and saw how ashamed her mother was. Melanie waited for Gladys to call her father every vile word imaginable, but all she did was sit there. Earlier today, her mother had been pretty cordial, too, and now she was letting Melanie’s father expose her secrets and say whatever he wanted? Melanie wondered what was wrong with her, and why she was being so pleasant. Why her personality had suddenly changed for the better. More important, why she was sitting at Melanie’s bedside like a loving, sympathetic mother when she hadn’t treated Melanie this way her whole life?

  Melanie lay there thinking about her medical condition. Did she really have an eating disorder? She hadn’t thought so, but she’d be lying if she said it was normal to feel as exhausted as she had over the last couple of months. Then again, until she’d lost down to her current weight, she’d seen with her own eyes how fat she’d still looked. And anorexia was something that usually occurred when a woman was much younger than Melanie. She knew that much just from the little she’d studied about it in nursing school.

  Melanie’s parents sat there, not saying anything else, and Melanie lay there with her eyes closed, thinking about Brad. How could he do something like this to her? Pretend that he was so in love with her when all along he was sleeping around with someone else? Melanie also thought about Alicia and how sorry she was for the way things had turned out between them. She’d been angrier than ever with her, but now as she lay there wondering if something was wrong with her heart, her issues with Alicia didn’t matter. She just wanted to apologize, because she needed her best friend to be there for her. She was going through so much, so fast and all at once, and Alicia was the only person who could help her through it.

  Melanie wiped tears from her eyes, but then there was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” she said.

  The door eased open, and Brad rolled inside with his wheelchair.

  “What are you doing here?” Melanie said.

  Gladys stood up. “We should go, Andrew, so they can talk.”

  “No,” Brad said matter-of-factly to his mother-in-law. “You’re part of the reason all this happened.”

  “I know you’re not gonna blame all this on me?” Gladys shot back.

  Melanie was confused. “Brad, what does my mother have to do with you having an affair? And how did you even know I was here?”

  “One of the deacons of the church saw your parents, and I called down to see if you were here. I just took a chance, but how are you feeling?”

  “I want you out of here. Just get out.”

  “Not until I say what I came to say. Look, I know I was wrong. What I did was the worst, but Jessica meant nothing to me. Nothing at all, except she got pregnant. I never slept with her after that, but I wanted to be a father to my baby. So, last year, I helped her with medical expenses, bought everything the baby needed, and I gave her child support. You didn’t know it, but that’s where most of that thirty thousand dollars went. And Jessica was fine with our arrangement until a few months ago, when she said child support wasn’t enough. She wanted ten thousand dollars a month or she was telling you everything.”

  “Andrew, let’s go,” Gladys said.

  “No,” Andrew declared. “I wanna hear every bit of this.”

  Brad secured the wheels of his chair with each safety latch. “And that’s why I’ve been withdrawing money every single month. But when you and I kept arguing about my so-called stock losses, and I saw how much it was tearing us apart, I told Jessica I was done. I told her I would give her a reasonable amount, but that was it. That’s when she told me that it was your mother’s idea for her to blackmail me in the first place.”

  Melanie looked at her mother and so did Andrew.

  “I’m leaving,” Gladys said, heading toward the door.

  But with Melanie’s room being so small, Brad quickly released the wheels on his chair and backed it against the door.

  Gladys stepped closer to him in a huff. “Please move out of my way, Brad.”

  But he ignored her. “Yes, that’s right. Your mother here found out about the baby, and she told Jessica that if she didn’t blackmail me, she would tell you everything and Jessica wouldn’t get another dime. Said she and the baby would never see me again. So for the last five months, your mother has collected half of every ten-thousand-dollar check I gave Jessica.”

  Melanie tried to register all that she’d heard. “Mom, is that true?”

  “I don’t have to explain anything. And anyway, if you’d lost weight like I told you, this lowlife husband of yours never would’ve had an affair in the first place.
I kept telling you what would happen, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “Lord have mercy on your soul,” Andrew told his wife. “Gladys, you’ve done some pretty awful things in your life, but nothing as foul as this. You betrayed your own daughter for money?”

  Gladys rolled her eyes at him and then told Brad, “Will you please move out of my way?”

  Brad gazed at Melanie with pleading eyes. “Baby, I’m sorry. I was going to tell you as soon as I got home on Saturday. But after I told Jessica she wasn’t getting another dollar, she lost it. She kept calling my phone, and next thing I knew she was flying through a red light.”

  Melanie glared at Brad and then at her mom, blinking back tears. “Both of you make me sick. And I want you out of here.”

  Brad leaned forward. “Baby, I know you’re hurt, but you have to forgive me. Please don’t end our marriage. Give me a chance to make things up to you.”

  Tears flowed down the sides of Melanie’s face. “If you don’t leave, I’m calling security.”

  “You don’t have to call anybody on me,” Gladys replied. “I’ll leave on my own.”

  “I still don’t believe this,” Andrew said. “You’ve been doing all that complaining about me not working, yet you’ve collected twenty-five thousand dollars?”

  “That’s my money,” she said. “It’s put away, and that’s exactly where it’s gonna stay. All those bills are your responsibility.”

  Melanie watched her mother acting as though she hadn’t done a thing. Then she looked at Brad and pressed her call button for the nurse. She would get her mother and Brad out of her room one way or the other.

  “Are you staying or going?” Gladys asked Andrew.

  “You go ahead. I’m not leaving Mel all alone.”

  “Suit yourself,” she spat.

  Brad finally wheeled himself away from the door, and Gladys strutted out of the room.

  “Baby—” Brad started, but Melanie cut him off.

  “Brad, there’s only one thing I want from you and that’s a divorce.”

  “Baby, I made a mistake. I’m not perfect, and you know how much I love you. This whole thing has been eating me up inside ever since it happened, and I’m sorry I hid it from you. Just let me fix this. I’ll do anything you want.”

  “Please leave,” she said.

  Tears fell from Brad’s eyes, and while Melanie still loved him, she didn’t feel sorry for him. He had deceived her, and now he had to live with the consequences. She would suffer as well, but their marriage was over.

  Epilogue

  Three Months Later

  Day in and day out, Alicia struggled to get out of bed. No matter how many times she went to sleep and woke up, her reality never changed. Phillip was gone, and he was never coming back. The two of them had fought over the gun, but when Phillip had finally gained control of it, he’d accidentally shot himself. Alicia remembered screaming at the top of her lungs, holding him and begging God to save him. But after being transported by helicopter to the nearest Chicago trauma center, he’d died in less than an hour. His mother had lost her only child, and Alicia couldn’t correct Phillip’s fate. She hadn’t physically pulled the trigger, but as far as she was concerned, she’d killed her husband. Her father had warned her that someone would get hurt, which was the reason she’d finally made up her mind to divorce Phillip. But she’d waited too long, and her plan had failed miserably.

  What bothered her more was the fact that she never should have remarried Phillip in the first place. Especially since she’d known all along that her heart and soul belonged to Levi. She’d wanted to believe she was doing the right thing, but now she knew that for the last three months she’d done everything wrong—and that a once kind, loving, innocent man was dead. Phillip had been her husband, one of her father’s favorite people, and a minister the entire congregation adored. He’d been everything he knew how to be for her and so many others, but Alicia’s mistakes had cost him his life. She’d pushed him too far this time, and he’d become someone she hadn’t recognized. It was still hard to fathom the way he’d spoken to her that night, the way he’d pulled a gun on her, the way he’d decided without a doubt that the only way to fix things was to kill her and Levi. It had been as if he’d forgotten about his love and honor for God and that he’d given up on life altogether. For days, Alicia had wondered if he’d been planning to kill all three of them. Her, Levi, and himself. She couldn’t be sure, but the deranged, unhinged look in his eyes had made her believe it. His demeanor had been violent, and the idea of taking someone’s life hadn’t seemed to bother him. Months before, her father had insisted that even the kindest of people could only take so much, and Alicia was sorry she hadn’t listened.

  But this was all because she’d hurt him in the very way she’d tried so hard not to. Her actions had been selfish, to say the least, and hardly anyone sympathized with her. Not family, friends, or church members. Her parents and stepparents tolerated her and told her they still loved her, but sadly, not even her brother Matthew picked up the phone to call her. When she called him, he always answered, but their conversation was awkward and short-lived. Actually, the only person who treated her the same was Levi. For the first month after Phillip’s death, she’d refused to see him because her guilt wouldn’t let her. But the more she’d talked to him on the phone, the more she’d realized how much she needed his love and compassion. This was also the reason she’d moved out of her and Phillip’s house in Mitchell and rented an apartment about twenty minutes away. She’d considered moving back to Covington Park, but since Levi was spending a lot more time in Mitchell preparing for the grand opening of his restaurant, she’d decided to stay.

  At the moment, however, she was sitting in the reception area of an inpatient facility for eating disorders in Wisconsin. Melanie had agreed to admit herself three weeks ago, but only after she’d fainted again and ended up back in the hospital. In the past, her heart had beat too fast, but last month it had slowed way too much, and her heart muscle was damaged. It was then that Alicia and Melanie’s dad had begged her to get professional help, and this time she hadn’t argued.

  A young female staff member escorted Alicia back to a small visiting room, where Melanie sat on a sofa. She and Alicia both smiled when they saw each other and hugged like they hadn’t connected in years.

  “I’ll leave you ladies to your visit,” the young woman said, closing the door behind her.

  Alicia and Melanie held each other tightly, not wanting to let go. Finally, they sat down.

  “I’m so embarrassed,” Melanie said, pulling two tissues from the box on the basic wooden table and passing one of them to her best friend.

  Alicia sniffled. “Why is that?”

  “I treated you so badly. I said some really awful things to you, and all you were trying to do was help me.”

  “You were sick, Mel. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t realize things had gotten so out of control.”

  “Neither did I. I’ve been ill for a very long time, and what scares me is that I could have died, yet I couldn’t see what I was doing to myself.”

  “But now you’re getting the help you need, and you’re going to be fine.”

  “I still have a long way to go, but I’ve learned so much about myself over these last three weeks. When I first got here, I thought I was too sane for a place like this. Can you believe I had the nerve to look down on people who purge? To me, bulimia was much worse than what I was doing. But now, I know I was in just as much trouble as everyone else here. I was starving myself to death. Literally.”

  Alicia kicked off her leather ballerina shoes and drew one of her knees onto the sofa. “I think I was sort of in denial, too. I knew you weren’t eating enough, but I didn’t want to believe things were so bad.”

  “Well, they were, and I’m sorry for purposely trying to hurt you.”

  “That’s all in the past. Although, it wasn’t like you said anything wrong.”

  “How do you mea
n?”

  “I never should have slept around on Phillip. The first time or the second. He’s dead, and everyone hates me for it.”

  “When it first happened, I was upset with you, too. But when I collapsed this last time and you came to the hospital, I knew I needed you. I knew that you and my dad are all I have.”

  “You still haven’t heard from your mom?”

  “No, and I don’t want to. My therapist wants me to talk to her and find a way to forgive her, but I’m just not ready for that. Same thing with Brad.”

  “Are you still filing for divorce?”

  “I am. It’s the one thing I’m absolutely sure of. About a month after Brad’s accident, I met him for dinner a couple of times, but the pain was just too great. Even when he would call me on the phone—which he did daily—all I could think about was the affair and the baby he had behind my back. I could never trust him again, and I just don’t have the strength to stay married to someone like that.”

  “I’m really sorry, Mel.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I love Brad and I love my mother, but I have to move on. Even my dad is planning to do the same thing. He just can’t take my mother’s cruelty anymore. But what about you? What’s going on with Levi?”

  “I love him, Mel. I love him with all my heart. But I feel guilty…you know, because of Phillip.”

  “Look, I loved Phillip like a brother, and I certainly wasn’t happy about your affair with Levi. I’m just being honest. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, life is shorter than most of us realize. We have to do everything we can to be happy.”

  “My mom and dad are so disappointed in me.”

  “Maybe, but they’ll eventually get over it. And even if they don’t, are you gonna stop being with someone you love? Someone you were willing to risk everything for?”