I hadn’t even noticed my husband standing behind me.
“You came back,” he said quietly.
I turned to him. He looked exhausted—eyes hollow, shoulders slumped like he hadn’t slept in days.
“What… what is all this?” I whispered.
He didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he walked me down the hallway to the small bedroom at the end.
My steps slowed when I saw the hospital bed set up inside.
Machines hummed softly. Tubes snaked across the blankets.
And there he was.
My stepson.
So pale.
So much thinner than before.
Next to the bed sat a plastic container filled with tiny folded paper stars.
My husband picked one up and placed it in my hand.
“He makes one every time the pain gets bad,” he said.
I looked down at the fragile star, carefully folded from bright blue paper.
“He thinks if he makes a thousand,” my husband continued softly, “you’ll say yes.”
The words hit me like a punch to the chest.
I felt my throat tighten as I looked back toward the bed.
His eyes fluttered open when he heard my voice.
When he saw me, a faint smile appeared on his thin face.
“I knew you’d come,” he said weakly.
My heart cracked.
“You always come back.”
That hurt.
Because I hadn’t.
Not when he first got sick.
Not when the doctors said the leukemia was aggressive.
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