“I thought I could solve it,” he said.
I looked at him.
“By yourself?”
He nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“Because I knew you’d try to sell the house.”
I said nothing.
“You’d sell the car. You’d empty your savings. You’d stop buying anything for yourself.”
He paused.
“And I couldn’t let you do that.”
I looked toward Emily.
“She’s our daughter.”
“I know.”
“I’m her mother.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you make me a stranger in her life?”
He covered his face.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
I sat down beside him.
“No, Ben.”
He looked up.
“You were protecting yourself from having to ask for help.”
He didn’t argue.
Because he knew I was right.
The Letter That Broke My Heart
That evening, after Emily was asleep, Ben gave me a letter.
“I wrote this months ago.”
I unfolded it.
The handwriting was messy.
Some words were crossed out.
Some sentences were unfinished.
I began reading.
Sarah,
I don’t know how to tell you this.
Every day I go to work, I tell myself I’m doing it for our family.
But every night I come home and see how tired you are, I feel like I’m failing you.
I know you’ve noticed that I’m not myself.
I know you’ve wondered why I don’t talk anymore.
The truth is, I’m scared.
I’m scared that if I tell you how much the treatment costs, you’ll blame yourself.
I’m scared that you’ll think I should have handled it better.
I’m scared that I’ll lose the life we’ve built.
But most of all, I’m scared that one day Emily will look at me and ask why I didn’t do enough.
I don’t know how to be a husband and a father and a surgeon at the same time.
I thought if I worked harder, I could fix everything.
I’m beginning to understand that I can’t.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
I couldn’t finish reading.
I pressed the letter against my chest.
Ben sat beside me.
Neither of us spoke.
Then I said something I had been holding inside for months.
“I thought you stopped loving me.”
He turned toward me.
