After I was paralyzed, my husband, Tony Gilbert, quit his high-paying job and spent five hard years taking care of me.
On Valentine's Day, I got a bouquet from him, but the card read: *To my beloved Hannah.*
I sat with that for a long time. That night, for the first time, I didn't take my sleeping pills, and I heard Tony on the phone with another girl.
"She didn't notice you sent the flowers to the wrong person?"
"No."
"We meet in three days. There's something I have to ask you. We've only been together three months online, and she's been with you for seven years. Can you really let her go?"
"I'm exhausted. She lost the use of her legs because of me, and I've taken care of her for five years. You have no idea how much I've given up."
Tony was turning every little thing he'd done for me into small talk.
They talked until the sky went pale with dawn.
I listened, and my tears soaked the pillow.
If Tony found it so hard, then I would let him go.
……
Tony came in the way he always did, carrying a cup of warm milk to me. "I put in a little dried blueberry."
Looking up at that gentle smile spread across his face,
I felt strangely unmoored for a moment, and asked on purpose, "I think I heard someone talking last night."
He froze, and something guilty flickered in his eyes.
"Really?"
"I was up working in the study all night. I didn't hear anything. It's probably the sleeping pills. I'll switch brands tonight."
He covered it with a smile.
I opened my mouth, wanting to say something, then swallowed it back and took a sip of the milk.
It tasted so bitter, so hard to get down.
Tony helped me get dressed, then went to catch up on sleep.
I took the chance.
I quietly picked up his phone and looked through it.
It was the first time I'd done that in five years.
I wanted to see what he and that woman were saying to each other.
I opened his messages.
When I saw that the name he'd pinned to the top of his contacts was "My Wife Hannah," something inside me clenched hard with pain.
A name that was supposed to be mine alone.
And somehow there was a second person……
I opened the chat.
Hannah: *Next time, just tell her the doctor said skipping breakfast is better for her recovery. Then you won't even have to make the milk. So much easier.*
Tony: *You're the smart one. You actually think about me.*
The newest message from this morning came into view, and my hands started to shake.
A month ago, Tony had suddenly told me, "You shouldn't eat too much in the morning. A cup of warm milk is the healthiest thing."
I believed him. I thought he really was looking out for me.
It turned out it was his online girlfriend's idea.
It turned out he found me too much trouble.
Their chats went all the way back three months, to when they met on a dating app.
Her name was Hannah Summers.
In just two days, they'd made it official.
No wonder those days he kept saying he had design work and copy to write for clients, holed up in the study from morning to night.
Tony had even filmed the meals he made for me, and me being helped to the toilet and the shower, and sent it all to her.
Hannah would always reply: *You're amazing, sweetie! A patient man like you must be so gentle. Whoever marries you is one lucky girl.*
*Ugh, she's the one dragging you down. Otherwise you'd already be the CEO of some big company by now.*
*My heart breaks for you!*
At first, Tony would still put in a word for me.
*It's not really being dragged down. I chose this. If she hadn't pushed me out of the way back then, I'd be the one paralyzed.*
*And besides, she'd landed an offer from a big overseas company.*
But after half a month, Tony started griping right along with her.
*My Wife Hannah, you're right. However much I owed her, I've made up for it.*
*She can't cage my freedom!*
But I never once caged him.
The truth is, if Tony was tired of me, worn out, he could have just told me straight.
I'd have been hurt, but I wouldn't have stopped him.
We'd promised each other once that if the love died, we'd part. Instead he chose to keep playing the devoted husband.
Was it pity for me, the cripple?
Finally, I opened Hannah's page.
She was younger, prettier, healthier than me.
Even if I offered the exact same comfort, the same warmth, I'd still lose.
The day they meet in person,
I'll be gone.
