Chapter 3 - The Ultimatum
“Hair restoration,” Daniel said.
I looked at the clinic website again. A smiling man with unnaturally perfect hair filled the screen. Beneath his photograph was a description of an advanced transplant package.
The price started at $4,995.
For several seconds, the only sound in the dining room was the refrigerator humming in the kitchen.
“You want a hair transplant?” I asked.
Daniel ran a hand over the slightly thinning area near his temples.
“I’ve wanted one for a while.”
“You never told me.”
“I’m telling you now.”
I tried to sit straighter, but the movement pulled at my incisions. Pain flashed across my chest.
Daniel noticed me wince. He did not ask if I was all right.
Instead, he said, “You don’t get to act shocked. You spent five thousand dollars changing your body.”
“This surgery was to relieve chronic pain.”
“That’s how you justified it.”
My medication was making me foggy, but his words cut through the haze.
“Justified it?”
“Come on, Emily. You wanted to look better too.”
“I wanted to be able to move without hurting.”
“And I want to feel better when I look in the mirror. Why is your insecurity more important than mine?”
I stared at him.
Daniel had attended the appointments. He had heard the surgeon explain the medical reasons for the procedure. He had watched me use heating pads and ice packs. More than once, he had massaged my shoulders while I cried from muscle spasms.
Now he was reducing all of it to vanity.
“I never said your feelings don’t matter,” I replied carefully. “But we discussed my operation for years. We planned for it together. You agreed that using the savings was appropriate.”
“I agreed because you wouldn’t stop talking about it.”
The sentence struck harder than if he had shouted.
I lowered my voice.
“You told me I deserved to feel better.”
“What else was I supposed to say?”
“The truth.”
Daniel pushed back his chair.
“The truth is that I liked you the way you were.”
“There was no version of me without pain.”
“You know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, I did.
He had liked my body even when living inside it hurt me.
The realization made my skin feel cold.
Daniel paced beside the table.
“I didn’t think the change would be this dramatic.”
“You saw the surgeon’s estimates.”
“That’s different from seeing it in person.”
“So this isn’t about fairness. You’re angry because my chest is smaller.”
“I’m saying you made a major decision that affects both of us.”
“My body is not shared property.”
His jaw tightened.
“There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The selfish attitude. You got what you wanted, and now nobody else matters.”
I could hardly believe we were having this argument two days after surgery.
“I need to lie down.”
“We aren’t finished.”
“I am.”
When I tried to stand, dizziness washed over me. I gripped the table until the room steadied.
Daniel watched without moving.
That frightened me more than his anger.
The man I thought I married would have rushed to help. This man seemed annoyed by my weakness.
“I need my medication,” I said.
He nodded toward the kitchen counter.
“It’s over there.”
The bottle was less than twenty feet away, but it might as well have been across town. I shuffled toward it, every movement sending a warning through my body.
Behind me, Daniel said, “I need an answer by tomorrow.”
I turned slowly.
“An answer about what?”
“Either we take five thousand dollars from the account for my procedure, or you find a way to put back what you spent.”
I thought he was bluffing.
“You agreed to the expense.”
“I changed my mind.”
“The money has already been paid.”
“Then replace it from your personal account.”
My personal account contained less than four thousand dollars. Daniel knew that.
“If I refuse?”
His expression became unnervingly calm.
“Then I’ll have to reconsider whether this marriage is fair to me.”
There it was.
The ultimatum.
Give him five thousand dollars, reimburse the savings myself, or risk my marriage.
I wanted to argue, but my body was beginning to shake. The nurse had warned me that exhaustion and anesthesia could intensify emotions. I refused to let Daniel use my recovery against me.
“I’m going upstairs.”
He did not follow.
It took me almost ten minutes to reach the bedroom. Daniel had promised to prepare a comfortable recovery area, but the wedge pillows were still inside their shipping box. My medication schedule was nowhere to be found, and there was no water beside the bed.
I called Rebecca.
She answered immediately.
“How are you feeling?”
The concern in her voice broke the last of my control.
“I need you to come back.”
Her tone changed. “What happened?”
“Please, Rebecca.”
“I’m turning around now.”
She arrived twenty-five minutes later and found me sitting on the edge of the bed, crying silently because lying down without help hurt too much.
Daniel was in his home office with the door closed.
Rebecca unpacked the pillows, brought water, checked my medication, and helped me settle against the headboard.
“Where is your husband?”
“Working.”
She looked toward the hallway.
“What did he do?”
I told her.
By the time I finished, Rebecca’s face had gone pale with anger.
“He gave you an ultimatum while you were still wearing a hospital bracelet?”
“He says the surgery was cosmetic.”
“He knows better.”
“I thought he did.”
Rebecca stood.
“I’m going to speak to him.”
“No. Please.”
“Emily—”
“I can’t handle a fight right now.”
She sat beside me and took my hand.
“Then you’re coming home with me.”
I looked around the bedroom Daniel and I had shared for three years. Our wedding photograph sat on the dresser. He was smiling at me in it as if I were the only woman alive.
“I shouldn’t have to leave my own house.”
“No,” Rebecca said. “You shouldn’t. But you need care, and he clearly isn’t willing to provide it.”
Before I could answer, Daniel appeared in the doorway.
“You called your sister?”
Rebecca stood between us.
“She needed help.”
“I was here.”
“Being inside the same building does not qualify as helping.”
Daniel ignored her and looked at me.
“Are you telling other people about our private finances now?”
“I told my sister why I needed her.”
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Make me look like the villain.”
Rebecca gave a humorless laugh.
“She didn’t have to make you look like anything.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“This is between my wife and me.”
“Your wife just had major surgery.”
“Cosmetic surgery.”
Rebecca stepped toward him, but I called her name.
She stopped.
I looked at Daniel.
“Did you ever actually believe I was in pain?”
He opened his mouth, then paused too long.
That pause answered me.
“I believed you were uncomfortable,” he finally said.
“Uncomfortable?”
“You’ve always been dramatic about physical things.”
My throat tightened.
“Then why did you support the surgery?”
Daniel looked away.
“Because I thought you would choose a more reasonable size.”
The truth settled over the room.
He had not supported my relief. He had expected me to preserve enough of the body he preferred.
Rebecca began packing my medication and clothes.
Daniel watched her.
“What are you doing?”
“She’s staying with me.”
“She can’t just leave during an argument.”
I almost laughed at the absurdity.
“I’m not your prisoner.”
“If you walk out, don’t expect me to forget it.”
I met his eyes.
“If you let me walk out two days after surgery because I won’t buy your approval for five thousand dollars, I won’t forget that either.”
Rebecca helped me downstairs.
As we reached the front door, Daniel called after me.
“You have until tomorrow night to decide.”
I did not turn around.
At Rebecca’s house, she settled me in her guest room and placed my phone on the nightstand.
There were already three messages from Daniel.
The first contained a link to the clinic.
The second said: We need to be fair.
The third said: If you refuse, that tells me exactly how little you value this marriage.
I read those words twice.
Then I opened our banking application.
The Future Fund balance was no longer twenty-six thousand dollars.
It was $8,412.
Nearly eighteen thousand dollars had disappeared.
May you like
And the withdrawals had begun three weeks before my surgery.
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