I didn't leave the hospital immediately.
I stayed in the chair beside Daniel's bed.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
The afternoon light moved across the wall.
A nurse came in to check his medication.
She asked whether he needed anything.
Daniel said no.
When she left, I looked at him.
"Did you ever have another relationship after the divorce?"
He shook his head.
"No."
"Not once?"
"No."
I wanted to believe him.
But trust doesn't return simply because someone finally tells the truth.
I had spent five years believing one version of our marriage.
Now I was being asked to replace it with another.
I wasn't ready.
"Did you ever think about coming back?"
He looked at me.
"Many times."
"Then why didn't you?"
He gave a tired smile.
"Because I had already hurt you."
"You hurt me more by keeping quiet."
"I know."
I looked at the window again.
A family walked past the hospital entrance.
A little girl held a balloon.
Her father carried a bag.
I wondered what Daniel had felt when he saw families together during all those years.
Whether he had wanted to call.
Whether he had almost driven to our house.
Whether he had sat in his apartment looking at the photograph of the children.
I asked him about the birthdays.
"Why did you always leave early?"
He looked surprised.
"I thought you didn't want me to stay."
I frowned.
"What?"
"You seemed uncomfortable when I was there."
"I was uncomfortable because I thought you were thinking about someone else."
He nodded slowly.
"I thought you hated having me around."
I shook my head.
"I wanted you to stay for the children."
He looked down.
"I should have asked."
"Yes."
He was quiet.
Then he said, "I didn't know how to be around you anymore."
I remembered the birthday cake.
The school performances.
The graduation photographs.
All those times he had stood near the back and left before the room emptied.
I had thought he was eager to return to his new life.
Now I wondered whether he had simply been afraid of staying too long.
I asked whether he had ever considered telling the children.
He shook his head.
"Not while they were young."
"They aren't little anymore."
"I know."
"They could have understood more than you thought."
He nodded.
"I was wrong."
I looked at his face.
He seemed older than he had during our last meeting.
Not just thinner.
Older in a way that made me think about the years we had lost.
"Did you keep the divorce papers?"
He looked at me.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Where are they?"
"In a drawer at the apartment."
I sat back.
I had kept mine in a drawer beneath the children's birth certificates.
He had kept his too.
For five years, we had both preserved the same painful piece of paper.
I asked whether he still had the photograph of the children.
He nodded.
"It's on the bookshelf."
"The one from the beach?"
"Yes."
I remembered that photograph.
The children had been covered in sand.
Daniel had been holding a red bucket.
I was laughing because the wind had blown my hair across my face.
It was taken before everything changed.
"Why did you take that one?"
He looked at me.
"Because it was a good day."
I looked down.
I didn't want to cry in front of him.
Not yet.
Then I asked the question that had been sitting inside me since I entered the room.
"Why call me now?"
He took a breath.
"Because I don't think I have much time left."
My hands went cold.
I stared at him.
"What did the doctors say?"
He looked toward the monitor.
"They're worried."
"How worried?"
He didn't answer directly.
"They're trying to keep me comfortable and manage what's happening."
I leaned forward.
"Daniel, are you dying?"
He looked at me.
There was no dramatic expression.
No sudden movement.
Just a tired man looking at someone he had once loved.
"I don't know exactly how much time I have."
I covered my mouth.
He continued.
"I didn't want to leave without telling you the truth."
I stood and walked toward the window.
I needed space.
I needed to breathe.
I was angry with him.
I was heartbroken for him.
I was angry with myself for having believed something so completely that I had never questioned it.
I turned around.
"Do the children know how sick you are?"
"No."
"Then we need to tell them."
He looked frightened.
"Not yet."
"Daniel."
"Please."
I sat down again.
He reached toward me.
His hand stopped halfway.
I looked at it.
Then I took it.
It was colder than I expected.
"I don't want them to remember me like this," he whispered.
"They deserve to know what's happening."
He closed his eyes.
"I know."
I held his hand for a few seconds.
Then I let go.
I couldn't promise him anything.
I couldn't pretend the lie didn't matter.
But I also couldn't walk out of that room and leave him alone with the truth he had carried for five years.
I asked whether he wanted me to bring the children the next day.
He nodded slowly.
"If you're ready."
I looked at him.
"They're your children, Daniel."
He swallowed.
"I know."
For the first time that afternoon, I saw something other than fear in his face.
Hope.
It was small.
But it was there.
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: The Photograph on His Bookshelf Showed Me How Much of His Life I Had Never Really Seen
The Wednesday Night Daniel Told Me There Was Someone Else, and I Realized Our Marriage Was Already Over
Part 7 of 20
