He held me as I sobbed. For the first time in our marriage, he let me see his back in the daylight. I traced the scars gently with my fingers, tears falling onto his skin. Some areas were numb. Others made him flinch. But he let me.
That was the beginning of our real healing.
—
**The Years That Followed**
After the revelation, everything changed — slowly, but beautifully.
Richard finally agreed to see a specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. New treatments for scar management had emerged —
laser therapy, better ointments, even experimental silicone sheets. The pain in his back, which he had hidden from me for decades, was finally addressed properly.
I started waking up with him at 4 a.m. At first, he resisted. But soon, it became our quiet time together. I would help him apply the creams on the hard-to-reach places. We would talk about everything we had kept from each other. Sometimes we just sat in comfortable silence, listening to the old house settle around us.
