“I don’t know.”
I nodded slowly.
That was an honest answer too.
Then he stood up.
For one terrible second, I thought he was leaving.
Instead, he reached for my blanket, gently pulled it higher over my shoulders, and sat back down.
“I’m not leaving tonight. You’re in the hospital.”
“And tomorrow?”
He looked at me.
“Tomorrow, we go home. You tell me everything. And I’ll tell you everything I’ve been hiding from you.”
He paused.
“Then we decide whether there’s still something left of those thirty-seven years worth saving.”
I squeezed his hand.
That night, I had gone to a hotel believing I needed a younger man to make me feel like a woman again.
But lying in that hospital bed, I finally understood something painfully simple.
Robert and I had both been terrified of growing old.
We had just been too ashamed to tell each other.
