The line filled with his broken breathing.
“I thought if I went to the hospital, my career was over. My father said I would lose everything.”
“You did lose everything. You just waited eight years to notice.”
He had no answer.
There was no answer.
I hung up.
That night, I told Aaron.
I expected rage from him. Protective fury. Something sharp.
Instead, he sat beside me on the kitchen floor while I pressed my palms against my eyes and tried not to make sounds that would wake the children.
He said, “That is a second wound.”
I nodded.
“Different from the first.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to decide anything tonight.”
“I have to decide what to tell them.”
“Not tonight.”
But mothers do not sleep when truth stands outside their children’s door.
Three days later, with guidance from their therapist, I told them.
Not every detail.
Enough.
