They Faked Their Deaths to Keep Her Baby,I Died Inside for Five Years

My wife was eight months pregnant when I discovered she'd been cheating on me. The baby wasn't mine.

I told her calmly that I wanted a divorce. She broke down and ran into traffic.

I threw myself after her to save her and was hit by a car.

Three days and three nights of emergency surgery later, I woke up and learned I would never function as a man again.

My wife and my brother knelt outside my hospital room, begging me to forgive them. I said only one thing:

"You want my forgiveness? Then go die."

Three days later, they drove off a cliff, leaving behind a single farewell note.

"Maxwell Swanson, forgive us."

Everyone called me a murderer. Because my marriage was a wreck, I'd driven two people to their deaths.

My parents cut me off. My in-laws destroyed my career. The internet tore me apart until I sank into depression.

For five full years, I lived drowning in regret and self-blame, hating myself for those vicious words I never should have said.

Until the day I was working as a hospital orderly and an elderly paralyzed patient dumped a bedpan all over me again.

I stood there, drenched and frozen in place, and looked up to see my wife walking toward me with a swollen belly, my brother hovering protectively at her side, my parents flanking them both.

We stared at each other. My parents broke the silence first, their faces stiff with awkwardness:

"These past few years were just meant to temper that stubborn streak of yours, teach you to stop pushing your brother and Gretchen Henson so hard."

"You should've learned your lesson by now. Come home. We'll make it up to you."

I shook my head slowly.

"No."

The emergency surgery five years ago had given me HIV. I had ten days left to live.

Ten days. All I wanted was to leave this world quietly.

——

The words drained the color from every face across from me.

My brother rushed to my feet and dropped to his knees.

"Maxwell, this is all my fault, every last bit of it! Back then, after you lost the ability to have children, the baby in Gretchen's belly was the family's only bloodline. Gretchen and Mom and Dad were afraid you'd force her to abort it, so they came up with the plan to fake our deaths."

He slammed his forehead against the floor over and over.

"I swear to you! The moment Gretchen's baby is born, I'll leave the country. I'll never show my face in front of you or Gretchen again for the rest of my life. All I'm asking is that you raise my two children as your own and treat them well!"

I took a few slow steps back and said evenly:

"No need."

Those two words twisted his expression. His eyes went red.

"You still won't forgive me?! Fine then, I'll go die right now! Consider it payback for what happened to you all those years ago!"

He rammed his head straight into the wall. Blood burst across the surface and spattered my face.

Gretchen, who had been staring at me without blinking, her eyes full of guilt and unease,

changed completely in an instant, rushing to my brother's side, screaming his name.

My parents scooped him up and ran for the emergency room, shouting back at me as they went:

"Maxwell, do you have to push your brother to death?! Look at him now! Are you satisfied?!"

"Look at yourself! A PhD from a top university, and you're wiping up filth for a living! Are you doing this on purpose? Trying to make people think we're the kind of family that plays favorites and bullies you?!"

Accusations with no ground to stand on.

Fifteen years ago, words like those would have cut me to the bone. I would have fought back with everything I had.

"You feel sorry for him! What about me? He's the one who wronged me. Why am I the one being blamed?!"

"Aren't you the ones who ruined me?! What right do you have to demand my forgiveness?!"

Five years ago, I actually said something like that.

When I first discovered my wife and my brother's affair.

That day, I drove home and found my parking spot half-blocked by Gretchen's car.

For no particular reason, I thought of a local forum post I'd scrolled past once out of boredom.