I almost didn't recognize Daniel's voice.
It was quiet.
Thin.
Nothing like the voice I remembered from our years together.
"Can you come to the hospital?"
I sat up.
"What happened?"
There was a pause.
I heard something in the background.
A machine.
A door opening.
Then his breathing.
"Please come."
I stood from the sofa.
"Daniel, what's wrong?"
"Can you just come?"
I looked toward the hallway.
The children were in their rooms.
I lowered my voice.
"Should I call the kids?"
"No."
That answer unsettled me.
"Why not?"
"I need to speak with you first."
I waited.
He didn't explain.
I asked which hospital.
He told me.
Then the call ended.
I stood there holding the phone.
For a few seconds, I didn't move.
I had not spoken properly with Daniel in months.
We exchanged messages about the children.
Sometimes we discussed school schedules.
Occasionally, he called to ask whether one of them was feeling better after being sick.
But he had never called me like that.
Not once.
I went upstairs and told the children I needed to go out.
I didn't tell them their father was in the hospital.
I didn't know what was happening.
I didn't want to frighten them with something I couldn't explain.
I drove across town.
The hospital parking lot was nearly full.
I found a space near the entrance and sat inside the car for a moment.
I looked at my phone.
No new messages.
I wondered whether I should call him again.
Then I remembered how weak his voice had sounded.
I got out.
Inside, the hospital smelled like disinfectant and coffee.
A nurse directed me to the floor.
I walked down the corridor, passing rooms with half-open doors.
People sat beside beds.
A television played somewhere.
A woman spoke softly into her phone.
Everything seemed ordinary.
Until I reached Daniel's room.
He was lying in bed.
For a moment, I didn't recognize him.
His face looked thinner.
His cheeks had lost their shape.
There were dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his arm showed several bruises where medical lines had been placed.
His hair was shorter than I remembered.
His hands looked smaller.
I stood in the doorway.
He turned his head.
Then he smiled.
It was a tired little smile.
"Thank you for coming."
I walked inside.
I didn't know whether to hug him.
I didn't know whether he wanted me to.
So I pulled a chair beside the bed and sat down.
"What happened to you?"
He looked toward the window.
"I'm sick."
I waited for him to say more.
He didn't.
"How long have you been here?"
"A little while."
"How long is a little while?"
He gave a small shrug.
"Long enough."
I looked at him.
The words sounded too familiar.
For a second, I was back in our kitchen.
The dishwasher was running.
His glass was beside the sink.
I could almost hear him saying the same thing.
Long enough.
I pushed the memory away.
"Why didn't you tell the children?"
"I didn't want them to worry."
"They're your children, Daniel."
"I know."
"How long have you been feeling this bad?"
He looked down at his hands.
"Can we talk first?"
I leaned back.
"What is this about?"
He didn't answer immediately.
His fingers moved against the blanket.
Then he said, "There's something I should have told you a long time ago."
I felt a familiar irritation rise inside me.
"Daniel, I don't know what you expect from me."
He looked at me.
"It's about the divorce."
I let out a breath.
"After five years?"
He nodded.
I stared at him.
"We've already been through all of that."
"I know."
"You told me you were seeing someone. You told me you wanted out. We signed the papers."
"I remember."
"Then what is there left to discuss?"
He took a slow breath.
His eyes moved toward the window again.
"I should have told you the truth."
I frowned.
"What truth?"
He looked back at me.
For a moment, he seemed to be gathering enough strength to speak.
Then he said something I never expected to hear.
"I never cheated on you."
I laughed.
It came out before I could stop it.
Not because I found anything funny.
Because the sentence made no sense.
I stared at him.
"What?"
Daniel didn't look away.
"I never had another woman."
I shook my head.
"Don't do that."
"I'm not."
"You told me you were seeing someone."
"I know what I told you."
"You sat across from me in our kitchen and admitted it."
His eyes filled.
"I know."
"You let me believe it."
He said nothing.
I leaned forward.
"You let me divorce you because I thought you had been sleeping with someone else."
He swallowed.
"Yes."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
For five years, I had lived with the idea that Daniel had chosen another woman over our marriage.
I had accepted the divorce.
I had explained it to our children as carefully as I could.
I had spent years trying not to imagine the life he might have built with someone else.
And now he was telling me there had never been anyone.
I stood up.
My chair scraped against the floor.
"Then why did you say it?"
He looked at me.
His eyes were wet.
I had seen Daniel angry.
I had seen him frustrated.
I had seen him tired after long days at work.
But I had never seen him look at me like that.
Like he was afraid of what he had done.
"Please sit down," he said.
I remained standing.
"No. I want an answer."
He tried to lift one hand, then let it fall back onto the blanket.
"I know."
"Do you?"
I could feel my voice rising.
"You let me think there was another woman for five years. You let the children grow up believing their parents separated because you cheated. You walked away from the house, the savings, and almost everything we had."
He closed his eyes.
I continued.
"You never corrected me. You never explained anything. You just let me hate you."
His eyes opened.
"I know."
That answer made me angrier.
"Stop saying that."
He looked down.
A tear moved along the side of his face.
I had imagined confronting him about the affair many times.
I had imagined asking who she was.
I had imagined asking whether she had been worth it.
I had imagined telling him exactly what he had destroyed.
I had never imagined sitting beside his hospital bed while he denied the affair altogether.
I looked at his arm.
At the bruises.
At the thin hospital blanket.
At the glass of water beside him.
He looked like a man who had run out of time.
But I wasn't ready to forgive him.
Not yet.
I wasn't even sure I understood what he was asking me to forgive.
"Daniel," I said, quieter now. "Why would you lie about something like that?"
He stared at his hands.
For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the steady noise of the medical equipment.
Then he looked up.
"I thought it was the only way to make you leave without feeling responsible for what was happening to me."
I stopped moving.
"What?"
He took a shallow breath.
"I thought if you believed I had betrayed you, you would be able to hate me and move on."
I stared at him.
He looked exhausted.
But he wasn't finished.
And for the first time in five years, I realized that the story I had told myself about our divorce might have been wrong from the beginning.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: The Reason He Wanted Me to Hate Him Was Nothing Like the Story I Had Believed
The Wednesday Night Daniel Told Me There Was Someone Else, and I Realized Our Marriage Was Already Over
Part 4 of 20
