I thought I was prepared to hear the truth.
Then I opened the letter.
The paper had been folded once.
Just one sheet.
I had imagined, without realizing it, that three years of unanswered questions would require pages.
There was only one.
I took it out carefully.
Jessica stood beside me.
She didn't ask to see what Sarah had written.
She had probably seen enough people receive news they weren't ready for.
I unfolded the paper.
Sarah had written my name at the top.
Not David with a period.
Not a formal greeting.
Just my name.
I could almost hear her saying it.
I began to read.
She said that if the letter had reached me, I had finally learned something she had worked hard to conceal.
She knew I would be hurt.
She knew I would have questions.
Before I came into her room, though, she wanted me to understand the one thing she had never managed to stop feeling.
She still loved me.
She had loved me when we separated.
She had loved me when the divorce became final.
And she had continued loving me through the years we had lived apart.
I stopped reading.
I couldn't help it.
The words were right there.
Written in Sarah's own hand.
But they contradicted everything I had spent three years telling myself.
I looked at Jessica.
"She says she still loved me."
Jessica didn't seem surprised.
"Yes."
I lowered my eyes to the letter again.
Sarah explained that when she learned how serious her illness was, she became frightened of what it would do to my life.
Not just frightened of the treatment.
Not just frightened of what might happen to her.
She was frightened of what would happen to me if I stayed.
She believed I would put everything else aside.
She believed I would spend my days looking after her.
She knew I wouldn't complain.
That was part of what troubled her.
Sarah had convinced herself that the only way to let me have a future was to release me from our marriage.
She had made that decision without asking me.
She had believed a sudden separation would be easier for me to survive than watching her health get worse.
I read that part twice.
Then a third time.
I wanted the words to change.
I wanted Sarah to have written that someone had pressured her.
That she hadn't understood the divorce papers.
That she had been given no choice.
But the letter was clear.
Sarah had made the choice herself.
She had believed she was doing something merciful.
I couldn't understand it.
I had never asked her to protect me from loving her.
I had never told her that sickness would make her unwanted.
We had been married for twenty years.
Twenty years.
I kept coming back to that number.
It wasn't a short relationship that could be walked away from without explanation.
It was most of my adult life.
It was the person I expected to find beside me when I woke up.
It was knowing how Sarah sounded when she was tired.
Knowing when she was hiding tears behind a smile.
Or believing I knew.
That last thought stopped me.
I had believed I knew her so well.
Yet she had gone through an operation while we were still married and kept the truth from me.
I had to sit with that.
The letter wasn't finished.
Sarah admitted that what she had done might seem heartless.
She knew her decision had caused pain.
But at the time, she had believed that ending the marriage quickly would give me a better chance to rebuild my life.
She thought I would eventually recover from losing her.
She wasn't certain I could recover from spending years watching her suffer.
I shook my head.
"No, Sarah."
I hadn't meant to say it aloud.
Jessica looked at me but said nothing.
I kept reading.
Near the end, Sarah wrote that if she ever found the strength to explain everything face to face, there were still things she needed me to understand.
She had not put those things in the letter.
That was where it ended.
No instructions about what I should do.
No request that I forgive her.
No promise that the future would be different.
Only the truth she had been unable to say when she left.
I stood there holding the paper.
I had asked myself so many times what was wrong with me.
Why twenty years hadn't been enough.
Why Sarah had been willing to leave when I still wanted to stay.
Now I had an answer.
And it was almost harder to bear than the explanation I had invented.
She hadn't left because I loved her too little.
She had left because she was frightened of how much I loved her.
I folded the paper.
Then I unfolded it again.
I didn't want to damage it.
That seems foolish now.
Sarah was beyond that door.
I should have been thinking only about her.
Instead, I was careful with a sheet of paper.
It was the first honest explanation I had received from her in three years.
I couldn't bear the thought of tearing it.
"She thought she was saving me," I said.
Jessica nodded.
"That's what she believed."
I stared at her.
"From what?"
Jessica didn't answer immediately.
"From giving up your life to care for her."
I let out a breath.
"She was my wife."
"I understand."
"That's what marriage is supposed to mean."
Jessica said nothing.
I heard myself continuing.
"I would have been there."
My voice shook.
"I would have wanted to know."
I was crying now.
I couldn't stop.
I thought about Sarah dealing with chemotherapy while I was living somewhere else.
I thought about the treatments I hadn't known existed.
The days I might have helped her.
The times she might have needed someone to sit beside her.
And the terrible possibility that she had gone through those moments believing I was better off without her.
I wanted to be angry with Sarah.
Part of me was.
She had taken away my ability to choose.
She had decided what kind of husband I would be allowed to become.
She had left me to grieve a marriage she had secretly wanted to keep.
But I couldn't hate her.
Not standing there with that letter.
Not after hearing what fear had done to her.
"Did she really believe I'd leave everything for her?" I asked.
Jessica looked at me.
"That's what she told the counselors."
"She didn't have to wonder about that."
I wiped my cheek.
"Of course I would have looked after her."
Jessica gave a small nod.
I wanted someone to understand the difference.
There was a difference between having your life stolen by someone else's illness and choosing to stand beside the person you love.
Sarah had never let me explain that to her.
She had imagined my future for me.
Then she had left to make that future possible.
The letter trembled in my hand.
I looked toward her room again.
There was one thing I needed to know before I went inside.
"Did anyone try to change her mind?"
Jessica was quiet for a moment.
"Yes."
I looked back at her.
"The counselors spoke with her about it."
"What did they say?"
"They tried to help her understand that accepting care wouldn't make her a burden."
That word hurt.
Burden.
I couldn't imagine looking at Sarah and seeing a burden.
Not after twenty years.
Not when she was sick.
Not when she needed me most.
"What did Sarah say?"
Jessica seemed to choose her words carefully.
"She said you were the kind of man who would give everything he had for someone he loved."
I lowered my eyes.
"She was right."
"That was what worried her."
I looked up.
Jessica's expression had changed.
I think she knew I was finally beginning to understand.
Sarah hadn't doubted that I would stay.
She had been certain of it.
And that certainty had frightened her enough to leave.
I folded the letter again.
This time, I placed it back inside the envelope.
I wasn't ready to enter the room.
Not yet.
I needed one more minute with the truth Sarah had kept from me.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: When Jessica Repeated What Sarah Had Told Her Counselors, I Finally Understood Why My Wife Had Walked Away From Twenty Years Together
I Thought My Marriage Had Ended Three Years Earlier, Until One Question at the Hospital Made Me Doubt Everything Sarah Told Me
Part 2 of 20
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