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. »
« So instead, » I said, « you decided to leave me first. Without asking me a single question about what I actually wanted. »
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« I know how you’d answer, » Griffin said. « You’d say you’re staying no matter what. That’s exactly why I couldn’t ask you directly. I needed to make this decision before you had the chance to talk me out of doing the one thing I actually think is right here. »
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« You don’t get to decide what’s right for both of us alone, » I said. « Not after fourteen months of doing everything together. Not after eleven years of marriage before that. »
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Griffin was quiet for a long moment, his hands still gripping the steering wheel like it was the only thing keeping him steady.
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« I’m scared, » he finally admitted. « Genuinely, completely terrified, in a way I never let myself fully feel during the actual treatment, because I had to stay functional enough to get through it. Now that I’m supposedly on the other side of it, all I can think about is that this might just be a pause. Not an ending. And I don’t know how to ask you to keep signing up for that, over and over, for the rest of both our lives. »
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« You don’t have to ask me, » I said. « I already decided that part eleven years ago, when I married you. Fear doesn’t get to unilaterally cancel a decision I already made, Griffin. Not without at least giving me the chance to make it again, with my eyes open, knowing everything you know now. »
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« And if you’d said no? » he asked quietly. « If knowing about the syndrome had actually changed your answer? »
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« Then that would have been my choice to make, » I said. « Just like it was always supposed to be. You took that away from me three weeks ago, the exact same day you decided, alone, that my answer would obviously be to stay, and used that assumption as your excuse to leave instead of actually asking me. »
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Griffin sat with that for a long time, something in his rigid posture slowly, finally beginning to loosen.
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« I’m sorry, » he said. « I told myself I was protecting you. I think, mostly, I was protecting myself from having to watch you decide, out loud, whether I was actually worth the risk going forward. »
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« I already decided, » I said. « You are. You always have been. I need you to actually let me prove that instead of making the decision on my behalf and calling it protection. »
