I had thought she was accepting the end of us.
Now I wondered if she had been saying goodbye to more than our marriage.
“Sophie,” I said, my voice breaking, “why would you go through this alone?”
She gave a tired smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“I wasn’t alone.”
I glanced around the empty hallway.
She understood what I was thinking.
“My mother came when she could,” she said. “A neighbor drove me after one appointment. Sometimes I took rideshares. It was manageable.”
Manageable.
I hated that word.
I hated the picture it created: Sophie sitting in the back seat of a stranger’s car after tests that could change her life, holding herself together because she had decided I was no longer someone she could call.
Dr. Keller took the file gently from my hand and returned it to Sophie’s bedside chart.
“We should continue this conversation inside,” he said.
Sophie didn’t move.
Neither did I.
The space between us felt full of ghosts.
Finally, she looked at the doctor. “Can we have a minute?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “One minute. Then you need to rest.”
When he disappeared into the room, Sophie sank back into the chair by the window. The movement looked painful, though she tried to hide it.
I crouched in front of her before thinking better of it.
Once, I would have taken her hand without hesitation.
Now I didn’t know if I had the right.
So I kept my hands clasped together and forced myself to look at her.
“What happened to your hair?”
Her fingers rose unconsciously to the short strands near her cheek.
“I cut it before it could start falling out unevenly.”
The answer stole the breath from me.
“Treatment?”
“Preventive medication first. Then a stronger treatment plan after the next results.”
Her voice was calm, but I knew Sophie’s calm. It was the kind she used when everything inside her was breaking and she didn’t want anyone else to feel responsible for the pieces.
“Why didn’t your mother tell me?” I asked.
Sophie’s expression hardened slightly.
“Because I asked her not to.”
“But why?”
She looked away, toward the gray afternoon pressing against the windows.
“Because when you asked for the divorce, I realized something.”
“What?”
“That you were drowning too.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t justify hiding this.”
