My Mother Was Dying, But My Husband Told the Paramedics It Was Just a DareChapter 1
My mother collapsed at the company's IPO gala.
I scrambled to call 911, but when the paramedics arrived, my husband's secretary stepped in front of them and blocked their path.
"Ha! You guys got pranked. There's no patient here. We were playing a party dare, and the loser had to call 911."
The words hit me like a slap. I whipped around and stared at Doreen Stephens in disbelief.
My mother was lying right there on the floor, unconscious, her life hanging by a thread, and this woman was standing there with a straight face, telling the paramedics it was all a game.
But what truly turned my blood to ice was my husband's reaction. He backed Doreen up without missing a beat.
"Sorry about the trouble. I'll cover the overtime and the trip out here."
——
I stared at him. Everything inside me went cold.
This is the man I loved for five years?
My mother was lying on the ground waiting for emergency care, and he didn't show a shred of urgency. Instead, he played along with Doreen's lie.
Doreen Stephens was the secretary he'd hired a year ago. She had an obsession with party dares.
The first time, she locked me alone in a pitch-black bathroom and left me there for two hours, drowning in fear. Afterward, she'd laughed in my face. "Wasn't that a rush, Mrs. Abbott?"
The second time was the company's holiday party. She called me in a panic, said my husband had fainted. I threw on whatever I could grab and raced to the office in my pajamas, hair a mess, heart pounding out of my chest. When I got there, I found her doubled over laughing and my husband watching her with that helpless, indulgent smile of his.
There was a third time. A fourth.
Every single time I was about to lose my temper, he'd step in and wave it off with a grin. "Doreen just likes her little dares. Don't take it so seriously."
Because I loved him, I swallowed it. Every time.
But this was different.
My mother had just undergone coronary bypass surgery. Her doctor had been adamant: no alcohol, nothing cold. But I'd only stepped away to use the restroom, and in those few minutes, Doreen had goaded her into downing a glass of hard liquor.
By the time I came back, my mother was on the floor, convulsing. She needed to get to a hospital immediately. This was not the time for party dares.
"A dare?"