NTA.
My husband and I got our 8 yr-old daughter a Bengal cat for her birthday. I was a stay at home mom and I really bonded well with the cat and just love him so much. My husband had a well-paying job but was recently laid off and we fell on hard times. I worked full-time a minimum wage job and my husband is trying hard to find work. I’ve been selling a lot of our valuable belongings in order to pay our bills. We sold our TVs, sofas, jeans, and refrigerator because we only eat exact portions daily.
My husband’s ex-co-worker offered 2000$ for our cat and I was extremely pissed that he would even consider that. Our pet is part of the family and I will not treat him like an object that we can sell away for some money. My husband argued that he will be going to a better family who can treat the cat better than we can in our current situation. We consulted our daughter and she sided with me saying she loves the cat just as much as I did and we vehemently refused. My husband says that the opinion of my 8-year-old daughter isn’t important in this situation because we are behind on bills already and will eventually get evicted. Selling the cat will give us a couple more months to keep us afloat but I said no. All family members are equal so we had a vote. It’s 3-1, my daughter, my cat, and I don’t want our cat to be sold off.
Fast forward a couple months, we got evicted from our apartment and is currently living under a bridge by Chinatown. My husband and daughter usually does the garbage dive runs while I take care of the cat and make sure he doesn’t run away. One day, my husband came back with a really bad cough and fever. It seemed pretty bad but that’s not even the worst thing. My cat caught all kinds of worms and is suffering dearly. We decide to ignore my husband’s condition for now as he is a masculine man and will be fine. We traded a lot of what we had to the other homeless living here. My husband was opposed to this idea but I swear that he will be fine tomorrow with some fresh air and my daughter was slightly reluctant but I convinced her. We made 7$ for two round trip bus rides for my daughter and I to get to the vet.
At the vet, we heard the worst possible news. He has less than 3 months left. All of his internal systems have been destroyed by the worms. The vet was upset with me but I told her we had no choice but to feed him with leftover General Tso's chicken or he’d die of hunger. The vet said we had 2 options. A 10,000$ surgery that might not even work or putting down the cat. She recommended the latter. My daughter thinks that it’s time to let him go and work on getting back a roof on our head. I told her that we do not place the needs of one family over others. As the vet pulls out the bill, I had my daughter distract her and I grabbed the cat and ran out to the bus. I knew they couldn’t hold an 8-year-old girl forever so my daughter took the bus a little after.
As I rubbed the cat’s belly, I noticed he’s been losing fur and getting smaller. We can fix that by upping his ratio of food so not to worry. I overheard some guys talking about hospitals buying organs cause of a shortage. A kidney goes for about 250,000$. I smirked and discussed this with my cat. It’s 2-0 we both agree to take my husband's kidney for the surgery and to get ourselves out of this situation.
I got off the bus and went back to our bridge. On the way back I found a piece of sharp glass on the floor and thought it’s more than enough for the job. I have to do this before my daughter gets back. I’ll explain it to her later and I’m sure she will understand. Even if she’s mad and calls me a monster, she will learn that sometimes adulting is hard and decisions have to be made. I hid the piece of glass in my shaggy pockets as I walk towards my husband who is laying on cardboard. I tie up the cat to a pole. His condition has worsened but that will make this easier for me. He told me he thinks he’s been infected with something and he needs to go to a hospital ASAP. I said yeah yeah let’s get you to the hospital... just not all of you. And I swung my glass shard right into his stomach. Blood spurts out and he screams in pain and he attempts to fights back calling me crazy. The other homeless all run away and it’s just me and him here. I stabbed him again telling him it’s for our family. You need to accept this. You’re a man, you can handle pain and you should be the one to do the sacrifice. He crawled slowly towards the end the light at the end of the tunnel leaving a shallow trail of blood. He raised his skinny hands up to the light and standing there was my daughter in all her glory. Her face was surprisingly shocked and she was frozen. Her dad told her to run and call the police but she could not move, chilled to the bones. I told her mommy will fix everything sweetie as I smile towards her. She rejects my smile which angers me more and I walk towards her father once more and this time, I stab him in the back. He let out a final scream echoing the whole tunnel under the bridge. This activated my daughter's body and she ran away not before tripping hitting her head hard on a rock. She will be back I was pretty sure of that.
I carved out my ex-husband's organs and put them all in a dainty trash bag. I burned the body and made prayers then head to the nearest hospital. I walked up to the nurse and told her of the organs I had for sale. I handed her the kidney first. Thanks to President Sanders, we are allowed to trade in our organs for cash. The nurse takes the kidney to the back and examines it. She comes out calling me an asshole for giving her a defective product. "This kidney is infected with Covid-19!!!". I didn't know what that was but I told her I'll trade the whole bag of organs for 30k USD. She got quiet and had a smirk on her face and agreed. Using the money that my husband blessed me, I went back to the vet and got surgery for my cat. Everything was successful. I bought an apartment and now live with my cat. I tried contacting my daughter many times through her Facebook but she never replied.
Three years later to earlier today, I bumped into my daughter at whole foods. I was buying premium cat food and she was shopping with her foster parents. Apparently she has lost all her memory of what happened that day but seeing me, it all returned at once. She screamed at me calling me a butt face and an asshole but I don't believe it. I don't care about other people's opinions, I just did what was right for the cat and I know that. She was screaming murderer! murderer! and everybody got really riled up and I yeeted out of there at once.
I'm home now on my MacBook cuddling with my beautiful cat and enjoying my new paleo diet. All I'm wondering is if my ex-daughter overreacted? AITA for loving my cat and treating him as family?