Chapter 34
Anna
I sat in the wheelchair by the door, my hands folded neatly in my lap. Today was the day I was being discharged. My dad and my sister stood nearby, ready to take me home.
Michael wasn’t there.
The man who still called himself my husband.
Everything about that word felt like a lie now. A facade. A title with no meaning left inside it.
“Are you ready to go, sweetheart?” my dad asked.
“Not yet,” I said, glancing at the doorway again.
I was still hoping. Stupidly, quietly, painfully hoping.
I hadn’t seen him in days. Not since the day I fell and he carried me back to the bed. Not since that brief, reckless kiss that burned into my memory like a brand. He didn’t come once after that. No check-up. No excuse visit. Nothing.
Maybe I scared him away.
Maybe I crossed a line he couldn’t step back over.
What was I thinking? Letting myself believe he felt something too. Letting myself hope for something that was never mine to hope for.
I stared at the door one last time, willing it to open.
It didn’t.
My chest ached as I lifted my hand and gave my dad a small nod. “Okay…let’s go.”
As he pushed the wheelchair forward, I whispered the words only I could hear.
“I’m going to miss him.”
I went to the checkout counter. Received my schedule from my physiotherapist, who will be coming to my home. I got to the parking lot. This is all new to me. Struggling getting into the car. My dad and Nancy were assisting me in and I suddenly felt terrible for being a burden to them.
As soon as I settled in the car, my sister handed me the jar with beads. I’ve been wanting to look at it for a while. “So Nance, Dad, you two sure you don’t know who this is from?”
Nancy looked at me with a guilty smirk. “I promise, we don’t know,” she signed.
We got home just before sunset. The house looked different—softer, emptier.
Furniture had been shifted to make wide paths, as if the rooms were holding their breath to make space for me.
Nancy pushed my wheelchair slowly and carefully, like she was afraid of bumping into something fragile that couldn’t be replaced.
She rolled me into my bedroom and stepped back.
“Do you want help getting onto the bed?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. I’ll stay in the wheelchair for a bit.”
She nodded, but she didn’t leave. She stood nearby, pretending to fix a pillow, pretending not to watch me struggle with movements that used to be automatic.
A while later, the front door opened.
Michael’s voice came first. “I just came from the hospital, they said you were discharged.”
His eyes went to my face…and then immediately dropped to the wheelchair. His mouth tightened. Not enough to be obvious—just enough to be honest.
“Yep,” I said. I didn’t bother smiling.
He held out the flowers like an offering. Big. White. Perfect. The kind that said effort without emotion.
“These are for you.”
“Thanks.” Nancy took them from him before I could. He didn’t argue.
“You remember I’m your husband, right?” he said lightly, like it was a joke we were both supposed to laugh at.
“I remember we are divorced.”
His brows pulled together. “Who told you?”
“No one had to.” I looked straight at him. “I heard everything, while I was in a coma. The plug. The paperwork. Veronica.”
His face went blank. “You heard all that?”
“Yes. So why are you still pretending we’re something?”
“Because we are,” he said quickly. “We can fix this. We can get married again.”
As he spoke, his hand reached for the wheelchair handle. His fingers barely brushed it—then he pulled back, fast, like it burned him.
My eyes went to the suitcases by the door. “You brought my things like we’re already done.”
“Just for now,” he said. “Until you’re better. Then we start again.”
“You’re dating Veronica,” I whispered, my vision blurring as tears gathered. My throat tightened, my nose burning.
“She’s not the one I love. You are.”
I laughed once. It came out wrong. “How does someone try to end the life of the person they love?”
“They said forty-sixty,” he snapped. “What was I supposed to think?”
“I thought it was sixty-forty. Either way, it’s still hope.”
He looked at the wheelchair again, then away. “Be realistic, Anna. No one plans a future around…this.”
Around this? Not around me? “So your love only works when I walk?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“That’s exactly what you meant.”
“I love you,” he said, softer now. “And no one will ever love you like I do.”
I believed him. And that’s what terrified me.
“I’m tired,” I said. “Can you come another day?”
He glanced at the crystal jar on my desk. “I saw that at the hospital. Who gave it to you?”
“As if you care.”
“I do. I’m your husband.”
“Ex-husband.”
His phone buzzed. He checked it without thinking.
“I’ll come back on Friday.”
“Veronica’s waiting,” I said.
He didn’t deny it.
The door had barely closed behind him when everything inside me collapsed.
I brought my hands to my face and cried the way you only cry when something has finally, truly ended—loud, broken, ugly.
Nancy rushed in. She didn’t ask questions. She just wrapped her arms around me and held on.
“Why does it hurt like this?” I sobbed. “Why does it feel like my whole life just ended? No one is ever going to look at me and see a woman again. Just…this.”
She pulled back just enough to look at me, her eyes fierce. Then her hands moved.
That’s not true. There is someone who loves you for you.
I wiped my face. “Who?”
She pointed—first to the jar of beads on my desk, then to the slippers tucked neatly by the wall.
The one who bought those, she signed.
“But you said you don’t know who it is.”
She didn’t answer. Just looked at me, quiet and knowing.
One name rose in my mind.
I shook my head. “It can’t be him. There’s no way.”
Nancy said nothing. That somehow made it louder.
A sudden sneeze escaped me. Then another. I frowned. “Please don’t tell me I’m getting the flu,” I murmured. “Not now. Maybe I just need sleep.”
She nodded and helped me onto the bed, slow and careful.
“Do you want something to eat first?” she signed.
“No. Just… let me rest.”
As she turned off the light, my eyes drifted back to the beads catching the last bit of sun—glowing softly, like a secret waiting to be spoken.