Reborn The Children I Raised Were My Husband's Affair BabiesChapter 1
On Memorial Day, I'd cooked an entire spread for my husband's family. His younger brother and sister-in-law ate the food, then collapsed and died on the spot.
To keep me out of prison, my husband spent every penny the family had. I worked myself to the bone, got my tubes tied, and devoted everything I had to raising the two children his brother left behind.
Twenty years later, those children had made something of themselves. I, on the other hand, had worked myself into a terminal diagnosis.
In my final moments, gasping for my last breath, I saw my husband with his arms around his sister-in-law — the woman who was supposed to be dead — kissing her like they'd loved each other all along.
"Catherine Gilbert, that stupid woman, never had a clue. We used her hands to get rid of my brother, that worthless parasite, and then she spent her whole life raising our kids for free."
"She was an only child from the state capital. Now that she's dead, everything she owned is ours. We can finally be a real family out in the open."
The breath caught in my throat. I died choking on my own rage.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day I'd gone with my husband to visit the graves.
This time, I threw down the spatula. I didn't touch the stove. I walked straight out the door and went to get dinner.
But when I came back, my husband's brother and his wife were still lying in a pool of blood.
——
I opened my eyes, and that final breath was still trapped in my chest, burning its way up my throat.
Above me, the soot-blackened ceiling beams of my in-laws' kitchen came into focus. The flame on the stove hissed and crackled.
This was twenty years ago. The day I'd come back to the countryside with my husband for Memorial Day. I was in the middle of cooking the holiday feast for his family.
Every scene from before I died played through my mind, and a chill crawled from the soles of my feet to the crown of my skull.
When I was alive, I was the fool who never complained, who did everything she was told. Dead, I was nothing more than a stepping stone to their fortune.
Not this time. Never again.
I slammed the spatula onto the stovetop and turned for the door.
"You ungrateful woman! Have you lost your mind?!"