The question was careful but direct.
“I don’t know what she’ll allow,” I said. “But yes.”
Dr. Keller studied me for a long moment.
“Sophie is under a great deal of stress,” he said. “Emotionally and physically. Whatever history you two have, I need to know you won’t add to that.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m serious, Ethan.”
“So am I.”
He nodded once, then opened the door a little.
The room was dim.
Sophie lay in bed with her eyes closed, her face turned toward the window. The IV line disappeared beneath tape on the back of her hand. She looked smaller than she ever had in our bed at home, where she used to sleep curled toward me even on nights when we barely spoke.
I set the bag on the rolling table beside her.
As I turned to leave, her voice stopped me.
“You remembered.”
I looked back.
Her eyes were open.
“The tea,” she said.
“Of course I remembered.”
She looked at the bag for a long moment.
Then she whispered, “Thank you.”
Those two words felt like more than I deserved.
I stood near the door, not daring to come closer.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She closed her eyes again, and for a moment I thought she was shutting me out.
But then she said, “For which part?”
It was a fair question.
A devastating one.
I swallowed hard.
“For leaving,” I said. “For not asking better questions before I did. For assuming silence meant there was nothing left. For making grief something we had to survive separately.”
She turned her face slightly toward me.
“And for being angry that I didn’t tell you?”
I took a breath.
“Yes,” I said. “For that too.”
A faint line appeared between her brows.
“I didn’t handle it perfectly either.”
I almost denied it automatically, but she gave me a look that stopped me.
“I’m not saying that to make you feel better,” she said. “I made choices too. I hid things. I decided what you could and couldn’t handle. Maybe I was trying to protect you. Maybe I was protecting myself. Maybe both.”
Her honesty filled the room with something delicate.
Not forgiveness.
Not reconciliation.
But a beginning.
“Can I come tomorrow?” I asked.
She looked away.
I waited.
The old Ethan would have filled the silence with pleading. Explanations. Promises. Anything to make himself feel less helpless.
