My husband borrowed $30,000 from my brother for my treatment in 2022. He asked him quietly at Thanksgiving so I wouldn’t hear, and I only found out later because my brother mentioned it in passing. I never asked about the money because I was already going through enough, and asking about money while I was sick felt wrong.
Last spring, my brother casually said he was glad the treatments had worked out. I agreed, and then he said, “Good — because he told me it was $30,000 for the first six months alone.” I stopped and asked what he meant by “first six months,” because I had never been told there was a second amount. My brother looked confused and said my husband had given him a detailed explanation of where every dollar was supposed to go.
Then my brother pulled up the old messages he’d saved from that Thanksgiving. The amounts didn’t match the bills I remembered, and there was one payment I had never heard of at all. It had been made three days before my husband ever asked my brother for the loan. And when I saw the name attached to that payment, I realized the money hadn’t been borrowed for my treatment in the first place…
