A week later, Kelly asked to meet me one final time.
We met at a quiet café.
He looked tired, but calmer than I had seen him in months.
“I know you may never come back,” he said. “But I need to tell you something.”
I waited.
“When I first married you, I believed love meant staying together through difficult times. But somewhere along the way, I became so obsessed with being a father that I forgot how to be a husband.”
I looked at him.
He continued.
“I blamed you because I couldn’t face my own disappointment. Then I made choices that hurt you, and when you discovered them, I became angry because I didn’t want to face what I had done.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“You never deserved that, Ella. Not the insults. Not the affair. Not the way I treated you.”
For a moment, I remembered the young man who had once held my hand and promised that we would face everything together.
