Chapter 18
Callum
I didn’t sleep.
Not because I tried and failed, because the idea of even lying down felt wrong. Why would I deserve a restful night of sleep, while my wife was suffering from my own actions in a different house?
Everything felt too silent, too still, too wrong. The air felt stale without her in it. Even the lamps cast the wrong kind of light, like they didn’t know who they were supposed to be comforting anymore.
When I got home after leaving my parents house, I dropped my keys on the counter and just stood there for a second, gripping the edge of the island like the world was tilting.
Ginny was at my parents’ house, in their guest room, pale and exhausted, and the whole time I should have been holding her hand.
I should have been the one driving her. I should have been the one she leaned on.
Instead, she clung to Thalia and my parents while I was busy winning the worst husband of the year award.
I ended up at the kitchen table, the same spot where she’d sit with her hair messy and her eyes half-open, stirring tea she was almost too tired to drink before work.
I could almost see her there, shoulders curled inward, wrapped in a blanket she always stole from the couch. The memory made my chest clench.
I opened my laptop. Even that simple act felt heavy, like the weight of every second I hadn’t done this sooner.
The search bar blinked at me, silent and judgmental as I frantically typed.
How to support someone with Paroxysmal Supraventricular Tachycardia
Recovery from a catheter ablation
Possible complications from a catheter ablation
Now, I read everything like my life depended on it, like I should have done a while ago.
Triggers. Warning signs. The physiology behind the rapid electrical misfire in the heart.
The way stress could push her into an episode.
The importance of supporting lifestyle changes and providing emotional support.
Possible soreness and bruising from the procedure.The risks of bleeding, heart damage, kidney damage, or even stroke.
Every paragraph was a punch to the gut.
I clicked the next article, then another.
Medical journals. Patient advocacy pages.
Random posts from people on reddit sharing their stories.
Bullet-point lists of risks and complications and red flags.
Every bolded line felt like a spotlight on my failures: stress, exhaustion, emotional disruption.
I could practically hear the doctor’s voice in the back of my mind, She needs safety, not strain.
And I had been one long strain.
A tight pressure built behind my eyes, but I kept going. I clicked into a clinical case study. A young woman with chronic PSVT suffered a severe episode after several weeks of emotional upheaval. It described dizziness, chest tightness, and a loss of consciousness. Emergency intervention.
I swallowed hard. My throat worked around nothing.
If Thalia hadn’t been there…
If Thalia hadn’t insisted on the hospital…
If Ginny had collapsed at home instead of in front of someone who cared enough to drag her out the door…
I pushed a hand through my hair, fingers trembling.
Standing up, I moved to grab a notebook before sitting back down. I flipped it open and grabbed a pen.
I didn’t write pretty sentences. Just fast, cramped notes, facts, recommendations, triggers, diet suggestions that help patients maintain cardiac stability, hydration guidelines, breathing techniques, signs of a dangerous escalation, when to call emergency services.
I wrote so quickly that the pen occasionally skidded, dragging ink in crooked lines.
Then more research.
Foods that stabilize electrolytes.
Common deficiencies.
Rest protocols.
Symptoms that look minor but aren’t.
How trauma interacts with PSVT.
Why emotional abandonment can worsen chronic cardiac conditions.
That last one hit me so hard I had to stop and put the pen down.
I hadn’t cheated on Ginny. I knew that. Nothing physical happened with Ashley, and I certainly didn’t care for her, and yet, I had somehow been dragged into her web. But reading through firsthand accounts of people whose partners emotionally vanished during their health crises…
It was like someone peeled back my ribs and shoved my face into my own neglect.
I clicked on another link, this one a long-form article written by a woman whose episodes increased during a period when her partner repeatedly dismissed her stress. She described feeling so alone and unsafe, like her heart didn’t trust her environment enough to stay steady.
And I felt sick.
Because Ginny trusted too easily. She believed people until they gave her a reason not to. She loved quietly, steadily, in that way where she assumed everyone else’s needs mattered more than her own.
And I had used that softness like it was infinite.
A wave of nausea rolled through me, but I kept reading. The more I read, the more something inside me tightened, coiled, sharpened. Guilt, yes, but something else too. Determination. A stubbornness I hadn’t felt in a long time.
I wasn’t going to let ignorance or stupidity be the reason I failed her again.
Around two in the morning, I searched for caregiver support recommendations and scribbled down more notes. I didn’t see the precise words on the page anymore; I saw Ginny’s face when she realized every time I ignored her and every time I lied to her and told her that nothing was going on.
My chest twisted so hard I had to brace both elbows on the table and breathe through it.
I had done this. Not Ashley. Not anyone else.
Me.
I closed the notebook slowly, my palm resting against the cover.
I couldn’t undo any of it.
But I could learn. I could work. I could rebuild from the ground up if she let me. And if she didn’t, if all she allowed was for me to stand in the doorway and make sure she was fed and rested and not alone…
That would be enough.
· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·
As soon as the sun was up, I grabbed my keys.
For the first time in too long, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
I was going to take care of her. Properly. Quietly. Without begging for forgiveness I hadn’t earned. Without asking for anything in return. I was showing up for her and I wasn’t going to fail her again.
The grocery store had just opened when I walked in, the lights too bright and the aisles too empty and the air too cold, but I moved through it with purpose.
I filled the cart with everything my research said could help her, everything that might support her heart or lower her stress or keep her blood pressure steady.
I grabbed ingredients for breakfasts she liked but never made for herself because she was always rushing out the door, always running on empty.
Lots of vegetables and berries, greek yogurt, low-acid juice, ginger, honey, and dark chocolate.
Anything that could help. Anything that could strengthen her.
Anything that could make up for even a fraction of the care I had failed to give.
The cashier gave me a strange look, maybe because of the large pile of food I was buying first thing in the morning or because of how I was gripping the cart, but I didn’t care. I loaded everything into the car with shaking hands and drove straight to my parents’ house.
The entire ride, my hands trembled faintly on the wheel, not with panic this time, not that jittery vertigo that used to claw up my throat, but something steadier and deeper, like my body was trying to recalibrate itself in the aftermath of the last few days.
Like guilt and determination were rewiring me in real time.
My parents’ neighborhood was quiet when I pulled in. Even stepping out of the car felt like stepping into a different world, one where Ginny was inside, probably asleep, probably exhausted, probably hurting in ways I didn’t know how to measure yet, even after all the research.
My chest tightened at the thought, a slow internal wince that didn’t have a physical cause so much as a moral one.
As I got out of the car, the front door opened only moments after I closed my car door. My mom slowly walked towards me, her eyes puffy and red.
“Callum, are you sure that you should even be here?” She said quietly.
“I need to be here, Mom. I know I have been the worst husband, but I want to support her. I want to make things right.”
She paused for a moment and seemed to study my face.
“I will let you in the house, but I swear to god, I will kick you out if you disturb her at all. She needs rest and relaxation, and that is what she will get in my house. Anyone who interferes will earn themselves a swift kick to the ass.”
“Of course, Mom. I’ll kick myself out if I upset her.” I replied quietly.
After a few more moments of silence, she turned around and opened the front door for me.
I carried the groceries inside as quietly as I could, and started to put the food away in the pantry and the fridge.
“Is she awake?” I asked, my voice rougher than I meant it to be.
“Not yet,” she said gently. “She had a difficult night.”
My stomach dropped. “Did something happen?”
“She woke up around four,” my mother said quietly, almost reluctantly. “An anxiety spike. Heart racing. She was crying.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose as the guilt surged fresh and sharp, like I hadn’t been drowning in it all night already.
“Did she ask for me?” I asked. The question felt pathetic, childish, desperate, but I asked it anyway.
My mother hesitated, and that was the answer.
“She didn’t want to wake anyone,” she said instead. “Your father and I helped her get settled again.”
Of course she didn’t ask for me. Why would she? I wasn’t the person she reached for in fear anymore.
I nodded without looking up and kept unpacking groceries with more force than necessary. My mother watched for a moment, then moved to help.
When the food was unpacked, I started to prepare some food for her quietly, washing berries, chopping vegetables, cracking eggs into a bowl. The more I worked, the more something inside me steadied.