“Why would Dad do this?”
I stared at his signature.
“Because your father could repair a roof in a thunderstorm, rebuild an engine, and carry a refrigerator by himself rather than ask someone for help.”
A broken laugh escaped me.
“But apparently telling his wife he was scared was too difficult.”
Hannah rested her head against my shoulder.
“Do you regret divorcing him?”
That question has stayed with me ever since.
Do I regret it?
Yes.
And no.
I regret the years we lost.
I regret that Michael died without ever hearing me say I understood.
I regret every birthday we celebrated separately.
Every holiday one of us skipped.
Every time I passed him in a grocery store and pretended thirty-six years could be reduced to polite conversation beside the cereal aisle.
But I don’t regret refusing to live inside a marriage built around a secret.
Because love cannot survive forever on “trust me” when every piece of evidence says the opposite.
Michael believed hiding his illness was an act of love.
Maybe part of it was.
But love without honesty can become cruelty without meaning to.
A week later, I drove to Pittsburgh.
I found the Hawthorne Hotel.
Room 614 was occupied, of course.
It was just a hotel room.
Nothing sacred.
Nothing sinister.
I sat in the lobby and ordered coffee.
Then I walked three blocks to the medical center listed on his paperwork.
That was when I understood how close the truth had always been.
The hotel.
The clinic.
The parking garage.
The pharmacy on the corner.
