The Day My Mother-in-Law Called Me a Fake Doctor
I walked into my kitchen at ten in the morning, still wearing scrubs that smelled like antiseptic and exhaustion. Thirty-six hours straight at the hospital. My hands were shaking from too much coffee and not enough sleep.
Beatrice sat at my granite countertop—the one I paid for—sipping a mimosa like it was noon instead of morning.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” she said, not looking up from her phone. “Julian, your wife looks like a homeless person again.”
My husband didn’t even glance at me.
He was scrolling through his investment app, the one that showed him losing my money in real time. “You missed brunch with Mom’s friends,” Julian mumbled.
“Again.”
I reached for the coffee pot.
Empty, of course. “I was working,” I said. Beatrice laughed.
It sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
“Working? Honey, typing up doctor’s notes in some basement isn’t real work.
Stop telling people you work at the hospital. It’s embarrassing.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten.
They thought I was a medical transcriptionist.
Some low-level desk job where I typed up reports for real doctors. I’d let them think that for three years now. Why?
Because the second Beatrice found out I made half a million dollars a year as Chief of Trauma Surgery, she’d bleed me dry.
New car, vacation house, country club membership—she’d want it all. By playing poor, I kept my savings hidden and my sanity intact.
“I’m tired,” I said. “I need sleep.”
“You’re lazy!” Beatrice shouted.
“My son works so hard managing our investments while you sleep all day!”
I looked at my hands.
Six hours ago, these hands had sewn a police officer’s neck back together after a car accident. They were raw from scrubbing, nails cut short and practical. “Enjoy your mimosa,” I whispered, and walked upstairs.
I couldn’t sleep.
I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, wondering when I’d stopped loving Julian. When had he become this empty shell filled with his mother’s poison?
The doorbell rang two hours later. “Elara!” Beatrice screamed from downstairs.
“Get down here now!”
A man in a cheap suit stood in our foyer holding a thick envelope.
“Elara Vance?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been served.”
Beatrice snatched the papers before I could touch them. Her eyes lit up like Christmas morning. “Finally,” she breathed.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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