I worked nights and nursed my husband through cancer — the week he was declared cancer-free, he asked me for a divorce, but after he walked away, his doctor pulled me aside and said, « There’s something you should know. »
« The parking garage, most likely, » Dr. Alderman said. « He mentioned needing time to think before he actually filed anything formally. »
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I found Griffin sitting in our car in the hospital parking garage, hands resting on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular.
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I opened the passenger door and got in without asking permission.
« Griffin, » I said. « Dr. Alderman told me about the genetic testing. About Li-Fraumeni syndrome. »
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His whole body went rigid.
« She wasn’t supposed to tell you that, » he said.
« She told me because you’re making a massive decision about our entire marriage based on information you decided I didn’t get to have, » I said. « I think, actually, she made exactly the right call. »
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« I didn’t want you to know, » Griffin said, his voice cracking. « I didn’t want you sitting there doing the math on how many more years of appointments and treatments and exhausted night shifts this is going to cost you, on top of everything you already gave up this past year. »
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« That wasn’t your decision to make for me, » I said.
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« I watched what fourteen months did to you, » Griffin said. « I watched you fall asleep standing up in the kitchen more than once. I watched you cry in the bathroom when you thought I couldn’t hear you through the door. I am not going to ask you to sign up for that as a permanent condition of our marriage, Simone. Not when I have a legitimate way out of it that doesn’t require you to actually leave me yourself. »
