I stared at the phone for a few seconds.
Daniel wasn't somebody who called me without a reason anymore.
We had been divorced for five years.
Our conversations were usually brief, and most of them concerned the children.
There had been months when we barely spoke at all.
So when his name appeared on my screen, I wondered what had happened.
I almost didn't answer.
I wasn't expecting a friendly conversation.
I wasn't expecting an apology.
And I certainly wasn't expecting him to call just to ask how I was doing.
But something made me pick up.
"Hello?"
His voice came through the phone.
It sounded different.
Weak.
Not the voice I remembered from the years we had lived together.
There was something in it that immediately made me sit up.
He asked me to come to the hospital.
I didn't understand.
I asked him what had happened.
There was a pause.
Not a long explanation.
Not even a proper answer.
He simply asked me to come.
I looked at the phone as if the screen might tell me something his voice hadn't.
I asked whether I should contact the children.
He said no.
That answer bothered me more than anything else.
Daniel was their father.
If something serious had happened to him, they deserved to know.
Why was he asking me to come alone?
I tried again.
"Daniel, what is going on?"
He didn't give me the explanation I wanted.
He told me there was something he needed to discuss with me first.
First.
That word stayed with me.
I didn't know what to make of it.
For a moment, I considered whether this had something to do with the divorce.
It had been five years.
There were no unfinished legal matters between us that I knew about.
We had already divided our life.
We had already gone our separate ways.
What could possibly be so important that he needed to speak to me before anyone else?
I asked him whether he was all right.
His answer didn't settle my worries.
He wanted me at the hospital.
That was enough to make the rest of the afternoon feel different.
I went.
On the way, I kept thinking about the last time we had spoken properly.
I couldn't remember the exact conversation.
That was how distant we had become.
There had been a time when I could recognize every change in his voice.
I could tell when he was tired.
I could tell when something was bothering him.
I had once known him well enough to notice things he hadn't said.
Now I wasn't even sure what kind of person I would find when I walked into that hospital room.
I wondered whether the children knew.
I wondered how long he had been there.
I wondered why he had waited until that afternoon to contact me.
And I wondered what he meant by needing to speak to me first.
When I arrived, I went to his room.
Then I saw him.
For a few seconds, I didn't move.
The man lying in the hospital bed looked so different from the Daniel I remembered that I struggled to connect the two.
He had become painfully thin.
His face looked older.
His cheeks were hollow, and his body seemed exhausted.
There were visible bruises along one of his arms where the medical lines had been placed.
I looked at him and tried to understand how much time had passed without me knowing he was this unwell.
How long had he been suffering?
How many people knew?
Had the children been told?
I didn't know.
All I could do was stand near the doorway and look at him.
He noticed me.
Then he gave me a small smile.
"Thank you for coming."
His voice was still weak.
I walked toward the bed.
For the first time in a long while, I found myself looking at Daniel without thinking about the divorce first.
I wasn't seeing the man who had supposedly chosen another woman.
I was seeing somebody who looked seriously ill.
And I felt concern.
I didn't want to admit how quickly it came.
After everything that had happened, I had thought I was finished worrying about him.
But there he was.
The father of my children.
The man I had once loved.
And I couldn't pretend that seeing him like that meant nothing.
I sat beside his bed.
I wanted him to explain why he had called me.
I wanted to know what had happened.
I wanted to understand why he had refused to let me contact the children before I came.
But I also wanted him to tell me how long things had been this bad.
I looked at him.
"What did you need to tell me?"
Daniel didn't answer immediately.
He looked down at his hands.
There was something familiar about that gesture.
It reminded me of the kitchen table.
The Wednesday night.
The confession that had ended our marriage.
I felt myself becoming guarded again.
I had spent five years trying to put that memory behind me.
I didn't want to sit in a hospital room and have the same conversation all over again.
But Daniel seemed determined to speak.
He told me there was something he should have explained five years earlier.
I frowned.
Five years earlier.
That meant the divorce.
I leaned back slightly.
I didn't know whether I was angry or simply tired.
There were so many things that had already happened.
So many decisions had been made.
So much time had passed.
I wondered why he had waited until now.
He was looking at his hands again.
And I realized he wasn't asking me to come because he needed to discuss something ordinary.
Whatever he had carried through those five years had finally become important enough for him to call me.
I waited.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: Five Years After the Divorce, My Former Husband Finally Spoke About the Night That Had Destroyed Our Marriage
The Wednesday Night Conversation That Made Me Believe My Fourteen-Year Marriage Had Been Nothing But a Lie
Part 3 of 20
