Though things were getting a little better with the mom's injuries, things with the husband continued to deteriorate, he’d still come home hours after he was supposed to. His attitude about money continued to get worse. The mother was still getting two full paychecks a month($2600) and her insurance was still fully paid by her employer. There obviously were new bills around the chemotherapy, but with the bills being turned in to the cancer insurance a lot were being reimbursed. The mother often asked the daughters to check and make sure the proper amounts were being refunded and they always were. So there was no worry with that.

The daughters also looked up any and all programs related to cancer to see if their mother would qualify for the help. There were a lot out there. And the mom did qualify for a few. She qualified because for many years the husband made sure they filed their income taxes separately. He did so, so that they would not have to risk paying back any money at the end of the year. This was the reason he was always paranoid that he would be audited. He knew he was sending false information to the IRS and he was so paranoid about it that he pulled out a big chunk of their money from the bank and put it in a safety deposit box in the youngest daughters name even though it was against the law to keep money in the box. He wanted no trace that they had as much money as they did. He knew that if the IRS got wind of the fraud they would freeze their bank accounts and that was the last thing he wanted. Remember he always said,"Nobody plays with my money."

The sad thing was it never crossed the daughter's mind that he was so willing to put her at risk. He was so willing to illegally put thousands of dollars in her name and out of his to keep himself safe. It was as if he didn't care if she got in trouble. And the daughter was blinded by wanting to help them that she did it all willingly and without a second thought. How awful is that? How could a man do that to someone he was supposed to consider his daughter?

The husband even made his wife use a different address so not to raise any red flags, she often used her father's address. When her father moved and then not long after passed away the husband panicked. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do anymore which caused him to have anxiety.

So according to the IRS their mother was married but separated which meant on paper she qualified for all the free help. They were able to get their mom some hospital equipment for no cost at all, she also qualified for a nutritional program that provided her with vitamin shakes and many other nutritional items to help when she had no appetite which was often. One of the last programs that they were able to find was one that paid for all her cancer related co-pays. The mother liked that one the most because she was going to the doctor multiple times a week and now she wouldn’t have to pay out of pocket for the co-pays and have to wait the time it took to get reimbursed by her cancer insurance company later.

Money was one of the things that her family wished she wouldn't stress about. Stress was not good for their mom and they had the money, plenty of it. Money should be the last thing on her mind, but it was all the time and her husband was to blame for it.

The husband would quite often complain about bills and money no matter who was around. He would frequently do it in front of his sick wife which would cause her to cry. It was as if he’d forgotten he had over 100,000 in their bank accounts and safety deposit box. The youngest daughter who often butt heads with the husband would try to tell him he needed to stop talking about money in front of the mom, that it visibly upset her and he would say okay and she was right, it did upset his wife, but he wouldn’t stop for long. It was in one ear and out the other the second something else money related bothered him.

It was because of how much emphasis the husband put on money that his wife gladly accepted money from her own elderly mother and thanked her saying it was going to help a lot. 

Every other weekend the husband would take his wife to visit her mother for the weekend. They all got along pretty good and the wife and her mother wanted to spend time together so it all worked out. It was during those times that the mother would give the wife 100.00 before leaving home. It as also during those times it would later come out that the husband would pack up whatever little bit of groceries the mother had there for his wife to take home. It was said that he never offered to pay for anything while they visited and any time they all went out for a quick bite to eat he'd pass the bill onto his wife's elderly mother. He had no shame telling her times were tough and making an 80 year old woman foot the bill. She of course never said no because it was for her daughter and she loved her daughter very much. (If you think any of that outrageous behavior is untrue or exaggerated all you have to do is ask her 80 year old mother, she'll tell you.)

One day the husband came home after stopping at the mailbox and getting the cable bill. The year long promotion they'd signed up for had ended and now the bill was a lot more expensive. He was angry because he tried to call and talk to the cable company, but it was under his wife's name so they wouldn't let him make any changes. That made him upset and he began to curse at the agent on the other end of the line and let him know they'd be losing their business.

It was at that time that he decided that he was going to completely turn off the cable. He said there was no money to pay the bill. The daughter got upset and told him not to turn off the cable. She asked him what he was thinking? She told him that his wife was basically bed ridden and all she had to occupy her days and give her any comfort was her television. (She loved her Young and the Restless and any and all detective shows. She even loved watching The Big Bang Theory. Who even watches that show? lol) The daughter went as far as to demand that he not take that away from her.

The husband's response was that this was none of the daughters business and that his wife would have to adjust. He said sorry but that’s how it was going to be whether they liked it or not. The husband often did things like this, talked out of his ass when he was angry and then changed his mind after he calmed down. That did not sit well with the daughter though so she quickly said her goodbyes to her mom and left. There was no point trying to talk sense into him when he got like that.

The daughter was livid at how callous the husband was being. It had become clear that because the wife was no longer working he didn’t see her as a participant in the household anymore. The wife wasn't working, but she was still bringing at least 2600 a month which was more than he brought in in a month. She seriously made more money than him and he was treating her as if she had no say in the decision making.

The following day the daughter went back to spend time with her mom while the husband went to the grocery store and they talked about what had happened the previous day. The daughter let her mom know how upset she was with the husband. The mom said that the husband was just being dumb and he just needed to say things to blow off steam and then he’d get over it and calm down and apologize. The daughter said that wasn't okay and it wasn't okay that he was turning off the cable. The mother told her that he wasn't going to turn it off, that she wouldn't let him.

The daughter wasn't convinced so to make herself feel better and to give her mother options she walked to her house and grabbed her personal fire stick and set it up in the mom's room just in case the husband indeed did have the cable turned off. She showed her how to watch movies on Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu. That became something the mother used almost daily. The husband did in fact not turn off the cable, but the package was downgraded.

Other instances revolving around money were that if food wasn’t cooked or brought over by the two daughters and the husband and wife ate take out it had to be through coupons or buy one get one free deals. The husband frequently asked the daughters for their coupons from the mail so he could use them. Now that may not seem like much and it probably isn't on a normal basis, but when a woman is given less than a year to live and doesn't always have an appetite you’d think that a loving husband would be giving his wife the best of the best on her last months, not buy one get one free Thundercloud sub sandwiches. He would often call the restaurants to complain that something was wrong with his order to try and get a free meal. He even bragged about it when it worked. He was the type of person to lie to get a free meal all the while tipping a hard working wait staff 2 bucks. He seriously thought a 2.00 tip was plenty.

From the beginning of their relationship they both put aside money for this specific reason. The reason they had 100,000 in the bank was in case an emergency came up. Well this was an emergency wasn’t it? What better time than this to use some of that money to buy his sick wife a few decent regular priced meals? I mean what was he trying to save money for??? Himself? To spend once she was gone? That was her money too after all. The mother never complained though. That might have been why it bothered her family so much. Their mom never really complained about anything. 

That was how the daughters saw it, they saw it as him saving every penny he could, getting any free handout to ensure he had as much money as he could once his wife was gone and it only fueled their anger towards him. The mom continued to speak up for him and say that was just how he always was. But in the daughters eyes just because that's how you've always been didn't make it right. And it wasn't right that he was penny pinching with their mom's money knowing she didn't have long to live. He was just looking out for himself.

Chapter 5 - The Beneficiary