lost in the same grief that had swallowed us both.
I thought of the day she packed her clothes.
How calmly she folded each sweater.
How she paused at the bedroom door and looked around as if memorizing the place.
I had thought she was accepting the end of us.
Now I wondered if she had been saying goodbye to more than our marriage.
“Sophie,” I said, my voice breaking, “why would you go through this alone?”
She gave a tired smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“I wasn’t alone.”
I glanced around the empty hallway.
She understood what I was thinking.
“My mother came when she could,” she said. “A neighbor drove me after one appointment. Sometimes I took rideshares. It was manageable.”
Manageable.
I hated that word.
I hated the picture it created: Sophie sitting in the back seat of a stranger’s car after tests that could change
