Two Days After the Cesarean Operation, My Mother-in-Law Pressed Her Fingers into the Wound, but My Husband’s Next Step Made the Color Leave Her Face

My mother-in-law’s fingers crushed my new wound so badly that I did not have time to scream — and at that exact moment my husband entered the room, holding his phone raised in his hand.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon in Room 402 of St. Jude’s Hospital. Snowy Chicago stood silently by the window, while the radiator kept knocking continuously, as if someone were trying to get out from inside. Forty-eight hours had not yet passed since the cesarean operation. The horizontal incision below my abdomen burned, the bandage had become slightly wet, and my newborn daughter was breathing weakly in the incubator.

Elena did not even bother knocking on the door. She threw her black leather bag onto the bed rail and came straight toward me.

“Get up,” she told me. “On Saturday there is a memorial feast for Giorgi. You will prepare the food.”

I thought she had not understood what the doctor had said. That I could not stand for several days. That the baby needed an oxygen machine. That without painkillers I could barely even remember my own name.

“Elena, I still cannot get up,” I whispered. “The doctor said the stitches might open.”

She gave an ironic little laugh.

“Doctors get paid to keep you sick. And you received fifteen thousand dollars from the insurance. You will transfer it to me today.”

My mouth went dry.

“That money is for the baby’s treatment.”

Elena struck the plastic cup placed beside the bed. The water spilled onto the floor, and a small blue sock that I had bought for my daughter became wet.

“It is family money,” she said. “Who paid for Giorgi’s funeral expenses? I did. Now you are repaying the debt.”

“I could not pay anything for your husband’s funeral. I was lying in the hospital.”

Her face suddenly hardened. Then she reached out her hand and pressed her fingers directly onto the wound.

White fire of pain burst in my eyes. My body curled up on its own. I clenched the sheet in my fists and bit my lip so hard that I tasted blood.

“Take your hand away from me!” I barely uttered.

“I will not leave here until you transfer the money to me.”

“Call your son,” I told her. “Tell him what you are doing.”

Elena pressed even harder.

“David knows everything. He himself told me that you are asking for too much.”

At these words, the small light of the incubator in the corner of the room flickered. My daughter’s fingers moved under the transparent plastic. I looked toward her and thought for the first time that perhaps I was not the only helpless person in this family.

But the door was closed. There was no nurse in sight. And David was not coming.

Then the curtain tore open. The hanger struck the wall, an iron sound rang through the room, and David appeared. His face was motionless, and he held his phone up high.

“Continue, Mom,” he said.

Elena immediately took her hand away.

“Are you recording this?”

“From beginning to end.”

“Why are you not stopping me?” I asked when I could barely breathe.

David did not look toward me. He still had the camera pointed at his mother.

“Because this time I want everyone to hear what you are doing.”

Elena took something out of her bag and put it on the bed. It was a brown folder, with my name written on it in a line resembling my signature.

“Recording a video will not help you yet,” she hissed. “If you do not sign this, we will take the child away from you.”

David’s finger froze on the screen.

“Open the folder, Mom,” he said.

Elena lifted the latch. I watched her hand as it approached the first page…

Elena took out the paper and held it near my face. It said that I voluntarily transferred the insurance money to her and took the child’s medical expenses upon myself.

“You will sign,” she said. “If not, David will say that you are mentally unstable.”

“David, did you prepare this?”

He looked at me for the first time. There was exhaustion in his eyes, but no pity.

“Do not sign, Marika.”

Elena turned around.

“Are you betraying your family?”

“No, Mom. For the first time I am trying to save my family.”

A nurse knocked on the door, but Elena did not open it.

“David, if you publish this, we will destroy both of you,” she threatened.

“I have already sent it to three addresses,” he answered. “And I have only the recording so far.”

My heart began beating heavily. David seemed to be acting to protect me, but why had he waited for his mother to cause me pain?

Elena put the folder back on the table and said in a low voice:

“You know nothing about that money. If you find out who actually received it, you will not be able to trust your own husband either.”

David’s face changed.

At that moment the doctor entered the room, and behind him stood two police officers. One of them was holding a small recorder.

“Mrs. Elena,” he said, “we have several questions for you.”

Elena looked at David in astonishment.

“You called the police on me?”

David lowered the phone.

“No. You brought them here yourself.”

The police officer turned on the recorder. On the recording, my voice, broken by pain, was heard, and then Elena’s calm words: “We will take the child away from you.”

But at the end of the recording an unfamiliar voice was heard, belonging to none of us in the room. It said only one sentence…

An unfamiliar man’s voice came from the police officer’s recorder: “The money must disappear before the birth, or everything will be revealed.”

Such silence fell in the room that the clicking of the incubator machine sounded like a heavy clock. Elena went to the window, but the police officer blocked her way.

“Where did you get this recording?” she asked.

David answered slowly:

“From my mother’s phone. For four weeks I have been saving her calls.”

Elena looked toward him.

“You were digging around in my phone?”

“No. You were sending voice messages yourself. I just no longer thought I would be able to listen to them.”

I half rose on the bed. The wound pulled again, but now something else was competing with the pain — the fear had a name too, although I could not name it yet.

“What amount are we talking about?” I asked.

David looked at the doctor, then at the police officer.

“Marika, your insurance money is not only fifteen thousand dollars.”

Elena laughed loudly.

“Do not make her believe nonsense. She is confused after childbirth.”

“The doctor’s conclusion says the opposite,” David said. “Marika is fully conscious.”

The police officer opened the folder. My signature was visible on the first page, but the letters were strangely stretched.

“This document was prepared two weeks ago,” he told me. “It says that Mrs. Marika named Elena as the beneficiary of her life insurance.”

“I never wrote this!”

“We know,” said the police officer. “That is why we came.”

Elena struck David.

“You will not dare take a family matter outside the family!”

David did not move back.

“A family is not a place where a mother presses a daughter-in-law’s wound and threatens her son with taking away his child.”

Elena’s face went pale.

The police officer placed a second document on the table. It was a bank statement. Fifteen thousand dollars had come from another account a few minutes before being credited to my account, while an automatic transfer of the money to Elena’s account had been scheduled for that same day.

“We also have cameras at the bank branch,” he said. “They show who brought in a copy of your identity document.”

Elena suddenly leaned toward me.

“Marika, tell them that I only wanted to help.”

“Is help pressing fingers into a wound?”

Her lips froze.

David put the phone on the table.

“The recording is already with a lawyer. And there is one more thing you need to know, Marika. After your father’s death, the plot of land registered in your name was also sold.”

My breath caught.

“Who sold it?”

David lowered his eyes.

“It was sold with my signature. But I did not sign it.”

Elena immediately shouted:

“David, shut up!”

It was an answer no one had yet asked for.

At that exact moment David’s phone rang. The lawyer’s number appeared on the screen. He answered, listened for several seconds, and the blood drained from his face.

“What happened?” I asked.

He slowly lowered the phone.

“The lawyer said that in the sale case it is not only my signature. There is a second person who recorded everything on camera.”

“Who?” I asked.

David looked toward me.

“That person is coming to the hospital now. And they have evidence that will destroy not my mother, but me…”