PAGE 6 — “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?”
“How long?”
Her eyes stayed fixed on her hands.
“A few years.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You were having panic attacks for years?”
“Please don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
But I was.
Not at her.
At myself.
At the doctors I’d never known existed.
At every night I’d slept beside a woman in pain while convincing myself her silence meant she didn’t love me anymore.
“How long have you been dealing with this?” I asked again.
Sophie swallowed.
“A few years.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She laughed once.
It was a painful sound.
“Because I knew exactly how it would sound.”
“What?”
“That I couldn’t handle life.”
I shook my head.
“I wouldn’t have thought that.”
She finally looked at me.
“Are you sure?”
The question landed harder than I expected.
Because the truth was, during the last year of our marriage, I had accused her of being negative.
Distant.
Impossible to reach.
I’d told her I was tired of walking on eggshells.
Maybe she had been right to fear what I would think.
Sophie looked away again.
“After the first miscarriage, I started waking up convinced something terrible was about to happen.”
Her voice trembled.
“I couldn’t explain it. My heart would race. My hands would go numb. Sometimes I couldn’t breathe.”
I said nothing.
“Then I’d look at you sleeping and think, Ethan already lost the babies too. He shouldn’t have to take care of me.”
My throat tightened.
“So I didn’t tell you.”
She swallowed.
“I went to doctors during lunch breaks. I kept the medication in my work bag. When you asked why I was tired, I said I hadn’t slept.”
“You could’ve told me.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you trust me?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Because I was terrified you’d leave.”
That sentence broke something inside me.
Because suddenly, I understood.
All those years, I thought Sophie was pushing me away.
She had been hiding because she was terrified of losing me.
And eventually, my response to her withdrawal was to do exactly what she feared.
I left.
