“Then why?”
I looked at her.
“Because when I saw you in that hallway, I realized the divorce ended a legal marriage, not what you mean to me.”
Her eyes glistened.
“That’s a dangerous thing to say the night before surgery.”
“I know.”
“You can’t promise a future because you’re scared of losing the past.”
“I’m not promising a future.”
“Then what are you promising?”
I leaned forward slightly.
“Tomorrow morning, I’ll be here. When you wake up, if they let me, I’ll be here. After that, I’ll ask again.”
Her lips pressed together.
A tear slipped down her cheek.
She wiped it away quickly, almost angrily.
“I was so angry with you,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“No, Ethan. I mean angry in a way that scared me. I would lie awake thinking, how could he leave when I was about to tell him? How could he not notice? How could he become a stranger in the same house?”
Each question pierced me.
“And then,” she continued, “I would remember the way you stood in the hallway after the second miscarriage, holding that tiny pair of yellow socks we bought, crying so quietly you thought I didn’t hear you.”
