My wife was sobbing now. I couldn’t help it; I pulled her into my arms.
“I slept in the guest room because if you touched me, I was going to break, and I needed not to break until I had a plan.”
“Claire.”
I pulled her into my arms.
“I didn’t want the kids to see me scared.”
“You should have let me be scared with you.”
Claire finally cried. Not the quiet crying or sobbing. The real kind.
“I thought you’d left me,” I said into her hair, tears falling from my eyes too. “I grew up thinking silence meant leaving. I forgot silence can mean loving somebody so hard you can’t breathe.”
Claire finally cried.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” she replied.
“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t do it alone anymore.”
***
We told Owen and Penny the following morning, together, in words that they could understand.
Six months later, Claire was responding to the chemotherapy. Megan had already booked next summer’s spa weekend because, honestly, the last one hadn’t been the same.
“Don’t be sorry.”
This time, they were going to stay for two weeks instead of one to make up for the previous trip and celebrate my wife beating her diagnosis.
So, to any husband reading this: when she goes quiet, don’t fill the silence with your worst fears.
Keep asking and keep loving her.
