Kneeling for Cash: A Mother's Desperate Fight

Chapter 1

My husband, Calvin Fuller, missed the desperate call from his childhood friend, Sheena Miles, because he was by my side while I hemorrhaged after childbirth. By the time he realized it, it was too late—Sheena’s delayed medical care left her permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

For ten years, Calvin blamed me, resenting both me and our son, Harry Fuller, forcing me to serve Sheena as her caretaker.

One morning, while driving Harry to school, we got into a horrific car accident. My legs were fractured, and Harry was rushed to clinging to life. When I begged Calvin on my knees to cover the medical bills, he just laughed in my face.

He stomped on my broken legs and made me crawl to Sheena to lick her feet as an apology. Yet, even after I did, he used Harry’s treatment money to buy her a designer purse instead. The moment I held Harry’s lifeless body in my arms, it finally hit me that my marriage had been in ruins for years.

And now, I was done.

…

The car accident shattered both my legs, and I was covered in wounds. Meanwhile, Harry was wheeled straight into the ICU. His condition was critical.

The moment I regained consciousness, a doctor came in with a bill and said, “You’re Harry Fuller’s legal guardian, right? His situation is extremely dangerous. The next surgery costs a lot—if you can’t pay soon, we can’t proceed.”

With shaking hands, I grabbed my cracked phone and dialed Calvin, but the voice on the other end was not his. A woman purred, “Josephine Lambert? Cal’s… busy right now. Try again later.”

“I need to speak to him. It’s an—” Before I could explain it was an emergency, a breathy moan cut through the line.

“Mm—not so rough!” Then, the unmistakable sounds of them panting flooded the receiver.

I froze. Before I could say a word, the line cut off. Then, I called again, and again over a dozen times, only to be met with cold rejection.

Eventually, I heard that familiar mechanical voice. “The number you are trying to reach has been turned off.”

I lowered my head, and tears slipped from the tip of my nose and dripped onto the floor as I thought of Harry clinging to his life. In the past ten years, I had lost count of how many times I had seen them tangled up together.

Every time I confronted him, Calvin would spit back, “If it weren’t for you, Sheena wouldn’t be like this. You owe her, and you’re going to take care of her for the rest of your life.”

At first, I fought back—screamed, sobbed, threatened to leave. But over time, I just turned numb.

I thought about leaving so many times, but whenever I thought of Harry’s innocent face, I changed my mind. I just could not let him grow up in a broken home without a father.

So, I swallowed it all—the humiliation, the pain—and served Sheena like a caretaker for ten whole years. Everyone treated me like the Fuller family’s help, while they treated her like the real Mrs. Fuller.

And now, with Harry’s life on the line, Calvin could not even pretend to care.

My grip tightened around the phone, shards of glass digging into my palm. My legs were bound with plasters and pins, and the pain in my legs was excruciating with every movement, but I did not care.

Ignoring the doctors’ protests, I grabbed my crutches and dragged myself out of the hospital.

…

I rushed back home as fast as I could. There, I found Calvin sitting in the living room, and when he saw me limping in with crutches, his face twisted in disbelief.

He mocked, “What kind of act are you pulling now? Faking an injury just to get out of taking care of Sheena?”

“Cal, Harry’s in the hospital. He was in a car crash, and he’s in critical condition… I need a lot of money for his surgery.”

He froze for a second, like he had just heard the punchline to a joke. “Harry’s in the hospital? Come on, stop messing around. His teacher literally just sent me a picture of him in class.”

Chapter 2

I snatched the phone from his hand and stared hard at the image. That made no sense. Harry was still fighting for his life when I left the hospital—I never even dropped him off at school.

Yet, looking at that picture on Calvin’s phone, I felt like the whole world was playing a sick joke on me. My heart sank as I remembered I had rushed out without bringing any of the paperwork or medical records with me, so I had no proof.

I mumbled, “No… No way. Cal, that photo has to be fake. Harry didn’t make it to school this morning. He got into an accident on the way.”

Calvin scoffed and shot me a look full of disdain. “Fake? Why would his homeroom teacher, Ms. Carol Smith, send me a fake photo? If you want to scam money out of me, at least come up with a better excuse.”

Before I could say anything else, a sharp scream and the crash of a wheelchair echoed from outside the living room. “Cal…”

Calvin’s attention was immediately shifted. His face filled with panic as he turned to run toward Sheena.

I threw aside my crutches and grabbed his wrist with both hands, my voice trembling as I begged him. “Harry’s really in the ER. He’s hanging on by a thread, and we need money now. Please, Cal, believe me!”

Tears streaked down my cheeks, and for a second, he hesitated. He even stopped moving.

“Cal… It hurts…” But the second Sheena cried out in pain, all the doubt vanished from his face. His expression turned cold as he peeled my fingers off one by one. “Did you seriously make up a whole car crash and use Harry to manipulate me just to get attention? That’s low, even for you.” I stared at his back as he walked away without even looking back, and it felt like a thousand knives were stabbing straight into my chest. The day Sheena first moved into the Fuller residence, Calvin threw all my bedding out of the master bedroom. “You’ll sleep in the guest room next to Sheena. If she needs anything—anything at all—you better be there in seconds. This is your fault—you’ll make it right.”

I had just given birth. My body was still wrecked from the delivery and from nearly bleeding out, but I never got to rest.

I did not get a real postpartum recovery. Instead, I dragged my broken body out of bed every night to tend to Sheena’s every whim.

As Calvin’s wife, I never got a single day off. Meanwhile, Sheena was treated like a princess. Her room overflowed with fine jewelry and designer dresses. Even though she could not walk, Calvin still bought her hundreds of pairs of expensive shoes, which filled three entire closets.

I remember our first wedding anniversary after Harry was born. I knocked on Calvin’s door and whispered, “Tomorrow’s our wedding anniversary. Can I have just one day off?”

“Sure,” Calvin agreed.

But what he meant by a “day off” was pushing Sheena’s wheelchair around an amusement park. They took cute couple selfies and fed each other snacks like lovebirds—they looked just like husband and wife.

And me? I was nothing but their help—cheap, invisible, and completely disposable. Maybe to Calvin, I was never his wife at all, but I was just a convenient little caretaker. Ignoring the searing pain in my legs, I dragged myself back to the bedroom on my hands and knees and yanked open the drawer. Inside was an old, worn jewelry box, and inside that box was a single diamond ring—plain, but perfectly preserved.

Chapter 3

It was the engagement ring Calvin had slipped onto my finger when he proposed. He had said, “I’ll love you for the rest of my life. Marry me.”

He had shut off the lights in the whole city, and under a sky lit up by fireworks, he knelt and asked me to be his wife. I had cried so hard from joy, completely swept away by what I thought was the most beautiful love, as I said yes.

But love, even when it burned bright, could wither just as fast.

After Sheena’s accident, Calvin never bought me anything again—not a gift, not even a meal. That ring was the last thing he ever gave me.

Now, with Harry’s surgery hanging in the balance and Calvin refusing to help, I had no other choice. So, I took the ring and rushed to a nearby pawn shop.

“I want to pawn this ring. I need cash fast,” I told the clerk, my voice shaking.

He glanced at my face, probably stunned by how desperate I looked. “This ring’s pretty old. It’s in good condition, but it won’t get you much. Are you sure?”

I gritted my teeth and nodded hard. After all, that ring was the last piece of hope I had left.

Later, I raced back to the hospital and used the money to pay for the operation. However, the doctor, Samuel Giles, told me Harry’s treatment would require even more funding if we wanted to keep him alive.

Clenching my teeth through the pain in my legs, I grabbed Samuel’s sleeve and begged him. “I swear I’ll find the rest of the money later. Just please—start the surgery! Save my son!”

Samuel said, “Ms. Lambert, I’ll do what I can within my scope as a doctor. But your legs are broken—if you keep walking, you’ll end up permanently disabled.

“Also, Harry’s condition is severe. We need someone to sign the critical condition consent form. I’ve already contacted Mr. Fuller—please figure something out quickly.”

Right then, Calvin came walking toward us, slowly pushing Sheena in her wheelchair.

I thought there was still hope, so I turned around immediately and pleaded with him again. “Harry’s in the ICU right now! We don’t have enough money for the surgery—please!”

He looked me up and down, then laughed like it was some sort of joke. “Josephine, you really went all in on this little scam. You even dragged the doctors into it? Do you think wrapping your legs up in bandages and splattering on fake blood’s gonna fool me? This is pathetic.”

Then, without warning, he shoved me hard. My legs buckled instantly under the pain, and I crashed onto the floor, barely able to breathe. I could not understand how he could still not believe me, even when we were standing right outside the ICU.

Sheena rolled her wheelchair toward me with what looked like concern. She asked, “Josephine, are you okay? How could you fake a leg injury just to manipulate Cal?”

As she got closer, her wheelchair suddenly rolled right over my broken leg. Before long, blood began to soak through the bandages. I could even hear the creaking of the bones, and the metal screws that the doctors had put in my legs shifted.

“Josephine, I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to…” Sheena simpered.

The agony hit me like a freight train, and cold sweat drenched my back. “It hurts… so bad…”

But instead of sympathy, Calvin’s expression only darkened, as if my pain disgusted him even more. “Wow, that was convincing. So? Now, you finally know what it feels like to have broken legs? If it weren’t for you, Sheena wouldn’t need to be wheelchair-bound for the rest of her life!”

Even so, I clenched my jaw and endured it all. I crawled forward and gripped the hem of Calvin’s jeans, desperation making my hands tremble. “Harry really was in a car crash—”

“How many more times are you gonna repeat that lie?” Just as he was about to rip my hand away from his pants, the ICU doors slowly swung open, and Samuel burst out in a rush.

Chapter 4

He asked, “Are you Harry Fuller’s guardian? He’s in critical condition. We need you to sign the critical condition consent form. Have you gathered the money for surgery?”

Samuel handed over the consent form, and for a second, Calvin froze. His fingers trembled as he reached out to take it, and the shock on his face was impossible to miss.

He stammered, “T-This can’t be real…”

His lips pressed into a hard line as he reached into his pocket for his card. Before he could hand it over, Sheena suddenly let out a gasp.

“Cal! Look at this—Harry’s homeroom teacher, Ms. Smith, just sent me this video!”

Calvin grabbed her phone and watched the screen. In the video, Harry was smiling brightly and laughing as if everything were perfectly fine.

That trembling in his lips turned into a cold, bitter smirk. Then, without warning, he slapped the consent form right into my face and barked, “Josephine, what else do you have to say for yourself?”

I stared at Sheena in disbelief. Her lips curled into a mocking little smirk, cold and cruel, and my heart turned to ice. Then, I looked at Calvin’s eyes—so empty and sharp they felt like shards of glass—and I completely broke.

“Calvin, Harry’s dying… I’m begging you, please just believe me this once!”

The hallway went dead silent.

Calvin did not speak right away. Instead, he slowly held up his card in front of me and said, “You want money? Fine. Get on your knees and beg Sheena for it—you’ll get however much you want.”

I turned to look at Sheena, and the humiliation slammed into me like a truck. Nonetheless, I could do anything for Harry’s sake.

“Fine. I’ll beg her.” I dropped to my knees in front of her, ignoring the burning pain. “Is this enough now? Will you transfer the money?”

My hands were clenched so tightly that my nails dug into my palms, but thinking about Harry finally being saved helped me breathe again.

Calvin suddenly let out a fake, exaggerated gasp. “Oops. My bad. Guess I just accidentally spent 100 grand on a new designer bag for Sheena.”

Sheena leaned into Calvin’s shoulder and giggled sweetly. “Cal, how do you always know exactly what I want? As long as it’s from you, I love it.”

I stood there frozen, completely stunned, while Calvin looked at my devastated expression with satisfaction.

“You staged this whole thing, didn’t you? Got a bunch of people to act for you. But Ms. Smith just sent a video showing that Harry’s totally fine, and you’re still trying to scam me?”

My ears started ringing. I could not hear anything else anymore.

Right then, Samuel came back out. He looked between me and Calvin with pity in his eyes and said gently, “I’m sorry. We did everything we could. Please contact the funeral home to make arrangements.”