The words hit like a physical blow. The air vanished. He’s poisoning himself.

Every night I’d cried by his bed, watching him writhe. Every time the monitors screamed and nurses came running while I prayed for a miracle.

A performance. A grotesque, self-inflicted torture designed to work the deepest instinct a mother has — the need to protect her child.

He was willing to wreck his own body to control my wallet.

“Are you sure?” I asked, my voice emptied of emotion. I’d moved past grief into something colder.

“I’m sure. He left a burner phone at the office and I got into it. He’s ordering heavy-metal supplements online and taking them right before his blood tests to throw off his liver and kidney enzymes. It’s calculated.”