The first time my dog growled at my husband, I thought he had stepped on her paw; by the third time, I started to believe she was trying to tell me the truth about the blonde hairs on his shirt. It’s funny how a marriage can feel solid for years and then crack in the space of a few strands of hair and one long, low growl.
My name is Hannah, and if you had asked me a month ago, I would have told you my life was ordinary in the best way. Small house on the edge of a mid-sized American town. A husband who kissed my forehead before work. A rescue dog named Daisy who slept with her head on my feet like she was guarding my dreams.
Ethan, my husband, works with his hands. That’s what I always say when people ask what he does, because job titles change, but the way he comes home smelling like metal and sawdust never does. He’s the quiet type, the kind of man who fixes a broken cabinet door without making a speech about it. For years, I took that quiet as proof of steadiness.
The first strand of blonde hair showed up on a Tuesday, that nothing-special kind of day when you forget what you had for lunch. I was folding laundry on the bed when I noticed it, long and pale against the navy of his work shirt. It caught the light in a way my own dark hair never does. I rolled it between my fingers, laughed to myself, and told Daisy, “Guess your dad walked past somebody’s desk too close today.”
The second strand came on Thursday. Different shirt, same bright, golden color. This time, it was near the collar where someone’s hand might have rested, where someone’s head might have leaned in. My laugh sounded thinner when I told myself it must belong to a coworker who used too much perfume and leaned too far into people’s personal space.
By the third time, Daisy had already changed. She used to sprint to the door when Ethan’s truck pulled up, nails skittering on the hardwood, tail wagging hard enough to move her whole body. Lately, she stayed near me on the couch, ears back, watching the door like it was something suspicious instead of something good.
That night, Ethan leaned in to kiss me, and Daisy stepped between us. It wasn’t a playful move. Her body stiffened, fur bristling just enough for me to notice, and a low growl rumbled from her chest. Ethan froze, hurt flickering across his face, and I felt my stomach drop.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked, holding his hands up like he was the victim here.
“She’s never done that before,” I said, wrapping my hand around Daisy’s collar. “Maybe you did step on her.”
“I didn’t,” he said quietly. “I’d never hurt her.”
I believed him about that. I really did. But my eyes still slid up to his shoulder, where another long, blonde hair clung to the fabric like a tiny flag waving in my face.
Later, I called my best friend Amanda. She’s the kind of person who has strong opinions about everything, especially men. I sent her a picture of the hair on his shirt and the way Daisy was now choosing the far end of the couch when Ethan sat down.
“Oh honey,” she wrote back almost immediately. “Blonde hair, late nights, and the dog doesn’t like him anymore? That’s not nothing.”
“He says it’s nothing,” I replied. “He says he’s just been busy.”
“Busy with who?” she shot back. “Dogs know. They always know. Trust the dog.”
That sentence dug into me and stayed there. Trust the dog. Daisy, who slept with her nose pressed against my leg. Daisy, who had seen every version of Ethan walking through that door—happy, exhausted, annoyed—and never growled. Until now.
I started noticing other things. Ethan’s showers after work got longer. He changed his shirt faster, as if he couldn’t stand to be in what he came home in. His phone lived face-down on the counter, buzzing with messages he never opened in front of me. When I asked how his day was, he’d say, “Fine” and then change the subject.
One Friday night, when I finally couldn’t swallow it anymore, I held up the latest blond hair between us like a piece of evidence.
“Whose is this, Ethan?” I asked.
He squinted at it, then at me. “Does it matter? I told you, I work around people all day. It happens.”
“People or one person?” My voice shook, and I hated that he could hear it.
He exhaled sharply. “Hannah, I’m tired. I don’t want to fight. It’s not what you think.”
“Then tell me what it is.”
His jaw clenched. He looked away, like there was something on the wall more important than the fear in my eyes. “I can’t. Not yet. Please just…trust me.”
The word “trust” hit me like an insult. Trust feels different when you’re holding someone else’s hair between your fingers and your dog is low-key growling at your husband.
That night, Ethan tried to sit next to me on the couch. Daisy pressed herself against my leg and stared at him, her eyes sharp. The growl was softer this time, but it was there. Ethan stood up without a word and went to bed early. I sat in the living room with Daisy, my heart pounding so loud it felt like another presence in the room.
I wish I could say I thought carefully before I spoke the next day, but I didn’t. The words came out like something that had been waiting for years.
“I want a divorce,” I told him Saturday morning, my voice flat, almost calm.
He stared at me like I’d slapped him. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” I said. “There’s blonde hair on your shirt every night, my dog won’t let you touch me, and you won’t even give me the truth. I can’t live like this.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. For a second, I saw something in his eyes—panic, maybe, or sorrow—but he swallowed it down.
“Hannah,” he said slowly, “it’s not what you think.”
“Then tell me what it is,” I repeated.
He looked away. “I can’t.”
That was it. That was the moment something broke clean in me. You can forgive a lot of things in a marriage, but you can’t forgive being made to feel crazy.
After he left for work, I sat on the edge of the bed with Daisy pressed against my side. My hands were still shaking when I picked up my phone and searched for a divorce lawyer. The consultation was set for Monday.
But even that didn’t feel like enough. I needed more than papers. I needed proof.
That afternoon, I slid my keys into my pocket and clipped Daisy’s leash to her collar. She looked up at me, head tilted, as if she understood something was shifting.
“Tomorrow,” I whispered into her fur, “we’re going to follow him after work. If he won’t tell me the truth, we’ll find it ourselves.”
Daisy thumped her tail once against my leg, as if she agreed.
Part 2 – Following the Stranger I Married
On Monday, I parked two blocks away from Ethan’s job and turned off the engine, my hands still trembling around the steering wheel. Daisy sat in the front seat next to me, her ears perked, watching the entrance like she knew this was some kind of stakeout.
The late afternoon sun turned the parking lot into a mirror of windshields and metal. People streamed out with the tired shuffle of a workday ending, holding lunch containers, backpacks, and coffee cups. I watched each man in a dark jacket and work boots, waiting for the one who used to feel like home.
When Ethan finally appeared, something in my chest twisted. He moved like he always did, steady and unhurried, but there was a heaviness in his shoulders I hadn’t seen before. He didn’t look like a man on his way to meet a secret lover. He looked like a man carrying a weight he couldn’t set down.
“Stay down,” I whispered to Daisy as I slid lower in my seat.
Ethan didn’t get on the highway toward our side of town. Instead, he turned in the opposite direction, toward the city center. My heart pounded louder with every turn he made that didn’t lead home. I waited until he disappeared onto the main road, then started the car and eased out of the space, leaving two cars between us like I’d seen in movies.
Daisy shifted restlessly on the seat, panting, her nose twitching toward the crack in the window. I kept one hand on the wheel and one on her back, as if steadying her would steady me. Each red light felt like a question: turn back or keep going.
I kept going.
Traffic thickened as we neared the city. Restaurants and small shops gave way to taller buildings with glass fronts that reflected the gray sky. Ethan’s truck finally pulled into a parking lot marked by a blue and white sign I knew too well. It was the logo for the regional medical center, the place where I’d had stitches once, the place where people went for good news and bad.
My first thought was not kind. Hospitals have staff parking and visitors’ parking. They also have quiet corners and private rooms. If you’re going to cheat, hiding it behind the walls of a hospital isn’t the worst idea.
Ethan parked and got out, locking the truck. I slid into a spot at the far end of the lot, my heart hammering against my ribs. Daisy whined softly, and I stroked her head, my eyes fixed on his back as he walked toward the main entrance.
Inside the lobby, I kept my distance. Hospitals all smell the same once you’ve been in enough of them. The air held the scent of disinfectant, coffee, and something metallic that made the back of my throat taste bitter. Ethan stopped at a small café stand, bought two drinks and a wrapped pastry, then headed toward the elevators.
I followed far enough behind that he wouldn’t see me in the reflection of the metal doors. When he stepped into one elevator, I waited for the next and pressed the same floor he had chosen. The number was burned into my memory: oncology.
The elevator hummed quietly as it climbed, the floor numbers lighting up one by one. A nurse and an older man got off at the cardiac floor. A young woman with a scarf wrapped around her head got on, holding onto the rail as if it were the only thing anchoring her.
When the doors opened onto oncology, I stepped out into a hallway that felt strangely muted. The floors were clean, the walls lined with pastel paintings of trees and oceans, as if you could soften the reality of cancer with pretty pictures. I saw Ethan ahead of me walking into a waiting area with large windows.
He turned into a smaller room with curtains and chairs, a place where patients sat with IV poles and blankets. I stopped at the doorway, half-hidden behind a corner. My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my ears.
There she was.
From where I stood, I saw the back of a narrow figure in a recliner. Long, golden hair fell around her shoulders, too perfect and shiny to be real. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and the bones of her collarbone pressed against the thin fabric of her shirt.
Ethan sat down beside her like he’d done it a hundred times. He placed the coffee cup in her hands, tucked the blanket more tightly around her legs, and brushed a stray piece of hair from her face. I saw him smile, soft in a way I hadn’t seen in weeks.
He reached for her hand and squeezed it. Even from across the room, I could see how gently his thumb moved over her knuckles. The intimacy of it was worse than anything I had imagined.
I stepped back until my shoulder hit the wall. A nurse walked by, giving me a polite, distracted glance. My eyes burned, but I forced myself to keep watching through the small gap where the curtain wasn’t closed all the way.
“It’s going to be okay,” I heard him say, his voice low but clear enough to carry. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
My mouth went dry. That’s what he used to say to me when I couldn’t sleep after my mom died. Those words had been ours, private and sacred, and now he was giving them to her.
The woman turned her head, and for one second, her profile came into view. Something in the angle of her nose and the curve of her jaw felt familiar, but my mind jerked away from that thought. I didn’t want another layer of complication. I just wanted to know whether my husband loved someone else.
“I can’t tell her yet,” Ethan murmured. “She’s not ready.”
The other woman’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “She’ll hate me.”
He shook his head. “She’ll be scared. That’s not the same thing.”
He was talking about me. I knew it, felt it like a punch. There he was, sitting in a room I had never been in, holding hands with a woman I had never met, discussing my reaction to a secret I wasn’t allowed to know.
I stumbled backward, my vision blurring around the edges. I made it into the elevator on shaking legs and jabbed the button for the first floor. The ride down felt endless.
In the parking lot, Daisy jumped up in the seat when she saw me, her tail thumping before she froze. When I opened the car door, she leaned away from me, nose wrinkling. There was a faint trace of the hospital on my clothes now, but not as strong as the scent Ethan carried when he came home at night.
I sat down and buried my face in my hands. For a long time, I couldn’t even cry. The world felt strangely sharp and distant, like everything around me belonged to someone else.
Finally, I took a breath that hurt and pulled out my phone. My fingers moved almost on their own.
I opened my messages and typed, “I saw you today. With her. Don’t come home tonight.”
I stared at the words for a full minute, my thumb hovering over the send button. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a small voice asked if I was absolutely sure. But the image of Ethan holding that woman’s hand, of his thumb tracing circles on her skin, drowned it out.
I hit send.
Daisy whined softly in the passenger seat as if she knew something had been set in motion that we couldn’t take back. I turned the key in the ignition, my eyes still stinging, and drove us home in silence.
Part 3 – Public Evidence
Ethan didn’t come home that night.
I stared at the dark driveway from the living room window until my eyes blurred. At first, I told myself he was giving me space, that he was sleeping at a friend’s house or in some cheap motel until I calmed down. But as the hours stretched, my anger folded over itself and turned into something harder.
Daisy paced between the door and the couch, nails clicking on the floor. Every time a car passed outside, her ears perked up. When the driveway stayed empty, she sighed and lay down at my feet, pressing her body against my ankles like she could keep me from falling apart.
The next morning, I put on the kind of clothes you wear to job interviews and funerals. Something about going to see a lawyer felt like both. I dropped Daisy off at home after a short walk, kissed the top of her head, and drove across town to an office building with neutral walls and framed photos of city skylines.
The receptionist offered me water and a practiced smile. My appointment was with a woman named Cara, whose soft cardigan and sharp eyes made it clear she’d heard every story in the book. She listened as I haltingly laid out my pieces of evidence: the blonde hairs, the late nights, the dog growling, the hospital.
“So you saw him holding hands with a woman?” she asked, jotting down a note.
“Yes,” I said. “In an oncology unit.”
“And he hasn’t given you a clear explanation.”
“He keeps saying ‘It’s not what you think’ and ‘Trust me,’ but he won’t tell me who she is,” I said. “If it was innocent, why hide it?”
Cara nodded, not agreeing or disagreeing. “Sometimes people believe they are protecting you by withholding information,” she said. “In the eyes of the law, what matters is what you want moving forward. Do you feel safe? Do you want to attempt counseling? Or are you ready to separate?”
The word “separate” landed like a stone in my stomach. I thought about our wedding day, about the vows we said while my mother dabbed her eyes with a tissue. I thought about the way Ethan had held my hand in the hospital waiting room when we got the news about Mom’s diagnosis.
“I don’t feel like I know him,” I said quietly. “And I can’t live in this constant doubt.”
She slid a packet of papers toward me. “We can begin with a petition for divorce,” she said. “You don’t have to decide everything right now. But this starts the process.”
I nodded like I was watching myself from the outside. My hand shook as I signed my name, the letters blurring slightly as my eyes stung. I told her I wanted the house, if possible, and full custody of Daisy. The words tasted strange in my mouth, but I said them anyway.
On the way home, I pulled into a grocery store parking lot and just sat there. My phone buzzed nonstop with texts from Amanda.
“Any update?”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Girl, don’t let him gaslight you.”
I took a picture of the packet of legal papers sitting on the passenger seat and sent it to her. A minute later, she replied with a string of clapping emojis and a heart.
“You’re doing the right thing,” she wrote. “Protect your peace. Men come and go. Your dog and your sanity stay.”
Something about that sentence twisted in me. I loved Daisy like family, but the idea of becoming the woman who only trusted her dog and no one else made my throat tighten.
That night, I did something I never thought I would do. I opened my social media app and started typing.
At first, it was just a way to get it out of my chest. I wrote about being married for almost ten years, about thinking we were solid, about the first time I found that blonde hair. I described Daisy’s growl, the way it changed everything, the hospital room with the woman whose hair shined under fluorescent lights.
I didn’t name Ethan. I didn’t share the city or the hospital. I told myself I was protecting his privacy. I called him “my husband” and the other woman “her.”
The words poured out faster than I could think. I wrote about how I’d sat in a lawyer’s office that morning, how my heart had cracked at the idea of dividing up not just property but memories. I wrote about how our rescue dog seemed to sense the betrayal before I did.
At the end, I typed, “Listen to your instincts. Listen to your dog. If something feels wrong, it probably is.”
I hovered over the post button for a long time. I could have saved it as a draft. I could have deleted it and pretended I never wrote it. Instead, my thumb moved, and suddenly it was out there, floating in a digital sea where strangers would soon read the worst parts of my life.
It didn’t take long.
The first comments came from friends and cousins, women I hadn’t talked to in months suddenly appearing with sympathy and rage on my behalf. Then the post started traveling beyond my circle. People I didn’t recognize began to comment, sharing their own stories of cheating, of red flags, of dogs who refused to sleep next to certain partners.
“Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
“Dogs know energy. Trust your dog.”
“Leave now, before he wastes more of your life.”
Each comment felt like a hand on my back, pushing me in one direction: away from Ethan.
By the time I went to bed, the post had been shared over a thousand times. I lay in the dark, staring at the glowing numbers on my screen. Some part of me felt sick that my pain had become content people passed around like a story. Another part of me clung to their validation like a life raft.
Ethan texted twice that night.
The first message came in the early evening. “Can we please talk?” he wrote. “I’m on my way.”
I didn’t reply.
An hour later, after my post had started to explode, the second message arrived. “Hannah, I saw what you wrote,” he said. “I’m begging you, take it down. You don’t know the whole story.”
I stared at the words until they blurred. Somewhere inside me, a small voice asked whether I was being fair. But the chorus of strangers saying, “You go, girl,” drowned it out. I put my phone face down on the nightstand and rolled over with my back to the door.
When I woke up, the house was silent. Daisy was curled at the foot of the bed, half on my feet like she used to when I was sick or sad. I rested my hand on her fur and listened to the hum of the air conditioner, the distant sound of a car starting.
By mid-morning, there was a knock at the door.
Ethan stood on the porch, eyes rimmed with red, shoulders slumped. He looked older than he had a week ago. In his hands, he held a small brown paper bag and a crumpled tissue.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
Daisy stepped between us automatically, her body tense. She didn’t growl this time, but her tail was stiff, and her nose wrinkled at the smell of hospital clinging to his clothes.
“There’s nothing left to say,” I replied, my voice colder than I felt. “I talked to a lawyer. I signed the papers.”
He flinched like I’d hit him. “You posted our life online,” he said. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Do you?” I shot back. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to follow your husband to an oncology floor and watch him hold another woman’s hand?”
His jaw tightened. “I told you, it’s not what you think.”
“Then what is it?” I demanded. “Because from where I was standing, it looked exactly like what everyone thinks it is.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. His eyes flicked to Daisy, then to me. He blew out a slow breath.
“If you go through with this, I’ll still take care of her,” he said finally.
I blinked. “Her who?” I asked, though I knew what my brain had decided: the blonde woman, the patient, the one who had stolen what was mine.
He looked straight at me, his voice low and steady. “Her,” he repeated. “The one you think is ruining everything. I made a promise.”
My throat felt tight. “So you’re choosing her over me,” I said.
“I’m not choosing anyone over you,” he said. “I’m trying to keep someone alive.”
The words didn’t make sense. They bounced off the walls of my fear and suspicion and came back twisted.
“Get off my porch,” I whispered. “We’re done.”
He stared at me for a long moment, pain etched into the lines of his face. Then he nodded, stepping backward.
“Whatever happens,” he said quietly, “I’ll still take care of her. With or without you.”
He walked away, the brown paper bag still clutched in his hand. Daisy watched from the doorway, ears flat, eyes dark. I shut the door and leaned my forehead against it, breathing hard like I had just outrun something dangerous.
Outside, his truck engine started. Inside, my post kept gathering likes, comments, and shares. It was proof for the world that I had been wronged.
The only problem was, I still had no idea what the truth actually was.
Part 4 – The Secret Patient
The next few days felt like living in a house with the windows open in a storm.
Messages poured in from people who had seen my post. Some were friends checking on me. Others were strangers thanking me for “speaking up” about betrayal. A few sent me private stories of their own divorces, their own dogs who refused to go near certain partners.
I replied to some, ignored others. Every time I opened the app, the number of shares rose. My anger fed on the validation, but another part of me felt hollow, like I was watching my life turn into a story people passed around with popcorn.
Ethan didn’t come back to the house. He texted twice more, short messages asking to talk, then stopped when I didn’t answer. The silence was its own kind of noise.
On Thursday, I got a call from Cara, the lawyer.
“He’s been served,” she said. “You should expect his response in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’d advise you not to discuss the details of the case publicly.”
I swallowed. “It’s a little late for that,” I admitted.
She sighed. “I saw the post,” she said. “I can’t tell you what to do emotionally, but legally, just remember: anything out there can be screenshot forever. Even if you delete it.”
After we hung up, I sat at the kitchen table staring at the wood grain. Daisy lay beneath my chair, head resting on her paws. I could feel her eyes on me, steady and present in a way that felt more honest than anything I was seeing on my phone.
By late afternoon, the silence in the house became unbearable. I found myself scrolling through old photos on my laptop—pictures from our wedding, from road trips, from nights we’d cooked dinner together and laughed about burning the garlic bread.
In one photo, I saw Ethan sitting cross-legged on the floor with Daisy sprawled across his lap like she owned him. His hand was buried in her fur, his head tipped back in laughter. There was no one else in that frame, just my husband and our dog sharing something simple and good.
A notification popped up on my screen. Ethan’s name flashed across with a new message.
“I’m coming over,” it read. “Please don’t shut me out. I owe you at least part of the truth.”
My first instinct was to delete it and pretend I hadn’t seen it. Instead, I sat frozen, my fingers hovering above the keys. Part of me wanted to hear anything that might make sense of the chaos. Part of me was terrified that his explanation would make me feel even more foolish.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Daisy lifted her head and let out a soft woof, not exactly friendly but not full-on threatening either.
I opened the door halfway, leaving the chain on. Ethan stood there, looking wrecked. His hair was messier than usual, his chin shadowed. He held a folder in his hand, stuffed with papers and something that looked like a small notebook.
“Five minutes,” I said through the crack. “You get five minutes.”
He nodded. I unlatched the chain, and he stepped inside. The smell of the hospital hit me first—antiseptic, something chemical, something my brain now associated with lies.
Daisy moved to my side, pressing against my leg. She stared at Ethan, her nose twitching. This time, she didn’t growl. She just watched him like she was trying to figure him out.
“I’m not here to fight,” he said softly. “I know you don’t believe me. Honestly, I wouldn’t believe me either, not with what you’ve seen. But you deserve to at least know who she is.”
My heart hammered. “Your girlfriend?” I spat. “Your secret patient?”
He flinched. “She’s a patient,” he said. “She’s also someone you know.”
I laughed, the sound sharp and humorless. “Oh good, that makes it so much better,” I said. “Is there anyone else in my life you’d like to betray me with?”
He set the folder on the table, opening it with careful hands. Inside were medical forms, appointment schedules, and a photograph that made my breath catch.
It was old, the colors slightly faded. Two girls stood in front of a brick house, one with dark hair in a messy ponytail, the other with blonde curls that caught the sun. They were laughing, arms around each other’s shoulders, identical gaps in their front teeth.
I knew that picture. It had been in a box of family photos my mother kept under her bed. The dark-haired girl was me at eight years old. The blonde was—
“Lily,” I whispered, my knees suddenly weak.
Ethan nodded. “She called me about six months ago,” he said quietly. “She had gotten my number from an old contact list your mom had. She didn’t want to upset you, but she needed someone. She’s been going through treatment alone.”
My mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. My last memory of my sister was of the two of us screaming at each other in a hospital hallway while our mother slept three doors down.
“She didn’t want me to tell you,” he said. “She was sure you’d hate her. She thought she deserved it. I tried to convince her, but every time we got close to calling, she would panic.”
“So you snuck around behind my back instead,” I said, my voice shaking. “You lied to me. You let me believe you were cheating.”
“I never said I was cheating,” he said. “I told you it wasn’t what you thought. I told you to trust me.”
“You told me nothing,” I snapped. “You told me to trust a blank space where the truth should have been. That’s not trust. That’s manipulation.”
He looked down, shame flickering across his face. “Maybe I should have told you sooner,” he said. “I can see that now. I just…didn’t want to add more weight to your shoulders. You’ve already carried so much grief.”
Something in me bristled at the idea that he could decide what I could or couldn’t handle. For years, I had prided myself on being the strong one, the one who held everything together. Hearing that my strength had been used as a reason to exclude me from my own family’s crisis cut deeper than anything.
“Does she know about the divorce?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
He swallowed. “Not yet,” he said. “She’s been having a rough week. I didn’t want to—”
“Didn’t want to upset her,” I finished for him. “Right. Heaven forbid the sick one feel bad, while the wife gets fed scraps.”
His shoulders sagged. “She’s your blood, Hannah,” he said quietly. “Even if you’ve tried to forget that.”
The phrase hit me like ice water. Your blood. It was the same thing my mother had said when my father left, when she insisted that we visit him even though he had built a new life across town.
Blood is blood, Hannah. You don’t just walk away.
I thought about the comments on my post calling Ethan every name in the book. I thought about the women cheering me on for leaving a man who would dare show up at a hospital with another woman. None of them knew that the “other woman” shared my childhood, my mother, my DNA.
“Why didn’t she call me?” I asked, the question tearing out of me.
“She was ashamed,” he said. “Of how things ended between you. Of the choices she made after your mom died. She thought you wouldn’t pick up.”
The worst part was, she might have been right. I had built a wall around that part of my life and decorated it with justifications. I told myself I was protecting my heart. In reality, I had been keeping my own sister locked out in the cold.
Daisy shifted at my feet, letting out a soft whine. Her nose brushed my leg, and I looked down to see her eyes flicking between Ethan and me, as if she were waiting for some signal.
I closed the folder and pushed it back toward him.
“I need time,” I said. “To think. To breathe. To figure out whether I can forgive either of you.”
He nodded slowly. “I understand.”
“Don’t text me,” I added. “Don’t show up here. If I want to see her, I’ll find my own way.”
He opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, then stopped. He reached for one final paper in the folder and set it on the table. It was a schedule of upcoming treatment dates and times.
“If you decide to go,” he said, “these are the days she’ll be there. She asked me once if you still wore your hair in a ponytail. She keeps that picture of the two of you in her bedside drawer.”
My throat burned. For a second, I saw myself in that photo again, my arm around my little sister, before we knew what it meant to lose someone for real.
“Get out,” I whispered.
He picked up the folder, leaving the schedule behind. At the door, he turned back for a moment.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “Daisy isn’t growling at me because I’m unfaithful. She’s growling because I come home smelling like chemo drugs and fear.”
Then he was gone.
I stood there for a long time, the house suddenly too quiet. Daisy nudged my hand with her nose, and I sank to the floor beside her, wrapping my arms around her neck.
“She’s your blood,” his words echoed in my mind. “Even if you’ve forgotten that.”
That night, I lay in bed staring at the treatment schedule on my nightstand. The dates were just numbers on a page, but every one of them was a countdown to something I wasn’t sure I was ready to face.