One Night Stand With My Husband’s Brother

Mackenzie was humming to herself in the kitchen while washing potatoes. The potatoes were given to her and her father by the caring neighbors as a gift.

Many of the neighbors had farms so it was not rare in Noose Hage village to exchange farm harvests.

As Mackenzie enjoyed the feel of the cold tap water as she poured the impurities of the potatoes into the sink, she heard panicked voices outside.

Curious as to what could be causing all the ruckus, she rinsed her hands and dried them with the washcloth before opening the door and looking outside. However, what she saw next was not what she was expecting.

“Father!” She shouted, watching with shaky eyes as her father was being carried by two hardy men with a trail of blood gushing from his right leg behind them.

“Mackenzie,” Maverick said with an exasperated expression.

“Uncle Maverick, Teddy!” She cried as she raced towards them, her eyes glued to her father’s bloody foot. “What happened?”

“He accidentally hurt himself while plowing the fields. I’ve contacted Felicity to come along with her plant-based treatments. We need to at least lessen the pain before taking him to the hospital.”

“Hospital?” Her father said with a fake chuckle even though his eyes looked so much in pain, “I don’t need a hospital, if I bandage it once, I’ll be fine the next day and will even be able to plow faster- ow!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, father!” She chided, gesturing Maverick and Teddy into her and her father’s small wooden house.

As they got inside, her father was gently laid down on the couch, and just then, two worried faces entered the house with a first aid box.

“Felicity, Miss Beatrice. Thank God!” Mackenzie rushed towards her best friend and her mother, “Please help my father, he’s bleeding!”

“I was going to do that without you telling me,” Beatrice moved past Mackenzie to her father who was painfully lying on the couch.

“Don’t worry, Kenzie, I’m sure your father will be fine, it’s just a leg injury.” Felicity placed a hand reassuringly on Mackenzie’s shoulder before kneeling next to her mother in front of Mackenzie’s father to provide support.

Mackenzie let out a heavy sigh hoping that was true.

But the more she looked at her father’s pained expression, the more she found that hard to believe.

“Don’t worry, Curly head, I’m sure your father will be fine.”

Mackenzie looked beside her and eased up when she saw that it was just Maverick.

Maverick was Felicity’s mother’s older brother’s son. However, he was older than Mackenzie and her friends’ age group so they just called him uncle. He was a kind and helpful person who was like a brother figure to Mackenzie.

After Mackenzie’s father was all bandaged, he soon developed fever and cold sweat broke over his forehead. He was given painkillers but his pain seemed to get even worse.

Even though he tried to hide it, she noticed the sudden paleness on his face and he didn’t stop bleeding from his leg even after Felicity’s plant-based treatments.

“That’s it, Mackenzie. His condition seems to be getting worse, we need to take him to a hospital,” Beatrice said shakily. “If not, he might not survive the night.”

The moment Mackenzie heard that she nodded, trying to maintain a level head even though her eyes were heavy with tears and it felt like she would explode any time.

Everything she did was for her father and even now, she wanted to do everything for her father. It would be meaningless if his life was in danger now and she couldn’t save him.

“Let’s take him to the hospital,” She said, looking at Maverick and Teddy who were standing by the side. Teddy was a delivery boy who helped her father run errands when she was not around.

“Please help me,” She begged desperately.

***

Mackenzie’s father was helped into the passenger’s side of the truck while Mackenzie took control of the wheel. The others decided to squeeze in and accompany her to the hospital except for Teddy who had to go and tell Charlotte the news.

Mackenzie noticed that the hospital did not have a lot of facilities like the one in Greensville, and neither did it look very good, but she hoped the doctors and nurses were kind and would tend to her father quickly.

Mackenzie had let her guard down a bit thinking all would be well now that she was at least in the hospital but then, a nurse pulled her aside to tell her the hospital policy.

“We cannot begin treatment on your father, Miss Mackenzie.”

“But, why?”

“You haven’t paid for his treatment yet,”

“But I already paid some money at the cashier!”

“That was for registration and a room,”

“What?!” Mackenzie was flabbergasted by the nurse’s words. Even so, she did not have time to bicker about that! Her father was in pain, she could hear his groan from here.

“Nurse, please, listen to me,” Mackenzie leaned toward the nurse, her desperation easing into her voice.

“I’ll pay you any amount you require but please treat my dad first, please, he’s in so much pain-”

“-Ma’am,” The nurse interrupted. “I’m not the one wasting time, you are.”

Mackenzie was taken aback by the nurse’s rudeness.

“I already explained to you the hospital policies. We can’t treat any patient without payment. If you care about your dad so much as you said, you’d deposit money into the hospital’s account without complaining. But I bet you don’t have any money which is why you’re here wasting my time,” The nurse said, staring at her nails with a bored expression on her face.

Mackenzie froze, angry and disgusted by the nurse’s attitude. She’d worked as a supervisor in one of the Axford Hotels and it was only the cut that she made from that, that she spent and sent to her father every month.

She was frustrated but realized there was no point reasoning with the rude nurse. The only way to shut her up was by paying the hospital so her father could start receiving treatment immediately.

So she rushed to the cashier and asked for the amount she needed to deposit. It was a large amount but if she used all the money in her savings, she could afford it.

“Mackenzie, have you paid the money yet?” Beatrice rushed to Mackenzie at the cashier stand with shaky hands and red eyes – She looked like she had been crying.

Beatrice was usually a sturdy woman and for her to cry, it seemed her father’s situation was ‘that’ bad.

“I’ll pay right away! I promise,” Mackenzie handed her card to the cashier and waited for it to register.

“Please hurry!”

Beatrice ran back inside, probably to morally support her father, and Mackenzie was thankful that she wasn’t in this alone.

“Ma’am, the card has been blocked.” The cashier said to Mackenzie with a tired look on her face.

‘This account has been restricted’

That was the response Mackenzie got even after driving to an ATM fifteen minutes away from the hospital. She no longer had access to the money in her bank account.

Mackenzie thought of the many scenarios that could have happened, and it all pointed toward Jeffrey, her husband.

Apart from herself, he was the only one who had access to her bank account.

So Mackenzie rang Jeffrey and he picked up after the second ring with a bored tonality.

“It’s you, Mackenzie.”

“Jeffrey!” She yelled through gritted teeth as his voice came through the phone.

“What the hell did you do to my bank account?!”

Silence.

“Jeffrey you bastard! Is this how you’re going to treat me after all these years of us being together?!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mackenzie. If you’re only going to insult me, I won’t take that. After all, you were the one who decided to leave me.”

Mackenzie was shaking with anger now, “Jeffrey, if you’re going to punish me for leaving you, you can do that later. Right now, my father is in a very critical condition and I need money to save him!”

“Are you going to beg for money now, you scum?”

Mackenzie stiffened, shocked to hear that statement from Jeffrey himself.

“I knew it. You married me for money after all. Listen, Mackenzie, if you’re going to beg for money, do it directly, no need to go about it confidently.” With that, the line went dead.

“The bastard!” Mackenzie spat irritably before dialing her mother-in-law’s number.

She knew that Jeffrey was too lazy to plot something as dynamic as blocking her from accessing her bank account. His mother must’ve gotten some information about her from him without his knowledge to hurt her in this way.

The first ring was unanswered and so was the second one.

This gave Mackenzie an odd but strong feeling that her mother-in-law was responsible for blocking her account.

Mackenzie kept trying her mother-in-law’s phone number.

Uncle Maverick, who had been following Mackenzie since she left the cashier at the hospital, finally let out a sigh of relief after seeing her.

Her father was in a critical situation, he wondered what was taking her this long to pay his bills.

Maverick wanted to call her name and tell her about her father but when he saw the mixed emotions on her face, he guessed that she must be having some trouble regarding paying her father’s hospital bills.

The person Mackenzie was desperately calling finally seemed to answer the phone.

“Hello?” Mackenzie yelled into her phone, “Eleanor! I know you’re responsible for restricting me from my bank account!”

“So what if I am? You should blame yourself for not having multiple accounts in case one of them fails.”

Mackenzie froze.

She hadn’t been expecting Eleanor to admit that she was the one that restricted her bank account.

But most of all, Eleanor’s words hit her quite heavily. She indeed had only one bank account- the one Jeffrey had helped her create.

“This is to pay you back for threatening me that day.”

Mackenzie shuddered, remembering the day that she’d pushed Eleanor aside in the guestroom while venting her annoyance about Jeffrey cheating on her.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Did you think I’d forget what you did that day easily and let it go? You must be out of your mind.”

“E-Eleanor,” Mackenzie stuttered, feeling a wave of coldness cover her.

Was this what their relationship was? A farce? Did it have no meaning at all?

“Why do you sound so shocked Mackenzie? You should have known this would be the result when you left our family so suddenly.”

“Moreover, it seems my husband likes you a bit so if my son divorces you, he’ll be sad.”

“What are you talking about, Eleanor,” Mackenzie groaned, her eyes gleaming with tears, “Right now I don’t care to listen to your complaints, my father is in a critical condition so please, release my account and I’ll do anything that you want me to, I won’t even mention that Jeffrey cheated, so please…”

“You’re such a joke, Mackenzie,” Eleanor said smugly, “Do you still think you have an importance of any kind? Even if you mention to anyone that Jeffrey cheated, who will believe a wretched thing like you?”

“E-E-Eleanor,” Mackenzie stuttered.

She had been bullied by Eleanor in the past but this… Eleanor had never spoken to her like this before. Why was she suddenly behaving like this? It made no sense. Sure she was petty but this… was just too cruel.

“You’re lucky this is all I’m willing to do to you Mackenzie. From now on, don’t you dare show your face to me and my son or I might do something beyond just freezing your bank account!” With that, the call ended.

Mackenzie fell with her back slammed up against the wall, her eyes and hands trembling in fear.

“This can’t be,” She murmured, going over what just happened in her head over and over. But no matter how she thought of it, she felt crushed, defeated.

And the realization that she had nothing dawned on her, it made her scared.

When Mackenzie snapped out of her thoughts, she realized that she was staining the floor with her tears.

“I’m such a useless daughter!” She whispered and let her tears fall even more.

No matter how she thought of it, her father had always been helping her more than she had ever helped him.

“I’m sorry, father.”