Chapter 3

The next morning, Mark was gone before I woke up. He left the watch box on my nightstand. He probably thought his grand gesture had smoothed everything over. He expected me to be grateful, to forget our conversation, to fall back into our old routine.

I didn' t.

I got dressed, made breakfast for myself, and decided to go for a walk. The autumn air was crisp. I needed to clear my head. My lawyer, David Lee, had filed the divorce papers, but Mark had been ignoring the summons. David said it would get ugly if Mark continued to be uncooperative.

I was walking past a small cafe a few miles from our house, one I' d never been to before. Through the large glass window, I saw him.

Mark.

He was sitting at a small table, laughing. Across from him was Emily Chen. She was leaning forward, her hand resting on his arm. She said something, and he smiled, a genuine, unguarded smile I hadn' t seen directed at me in years. He reached across the table and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. It was a gesture so intimate, so natural, it made my stomach clench.

They looked like a couple in love. Happy. Carefree.

I stood on the sidewalk and watched them. I didn' t feel a surge of anger or a wave of jealousy. I just felt a profound sense of emptiness. It was confirmation of what I already knew in my heart. The evidence was right there, in broad daylight, for anyone to see.

He was living a completely separate life, and I was not a part of it.

I didn't confront them. I just turned and walked away. There was nothing to say. That picture said it all.

That night, when he came home, he was sober and acting like the perfect husband. He brought me flowers.

"For my beautiful wife," he said, trying to kiss me.

I turned my head, and his lips landed on my cheek.

"We need to talk, Mark."

We sat in the living room, the ridiculously large bouquet of roses sitting on the coffee table between us. They smelled cloyingly sweet.

"I saw you today," I said calmly. "With Emily. At the cafe."

He didn't even have the decency to look guilty. He just looked annoyed.

"We were having a business meeting, Sarah. Emily is my top designer. You know that."

"It didn' t look like a business meeting."

"Well, what do you want me to say? Are you spying on me now?" he snapped.

"No, Mark. I don' t have the energy to spy on you." I took a deep breath. It was time. "I have uterine cancer."

The words hung in the air between us. The color drained from his face. He stared at me, his mouth slightly open.

"What?" he whispered.

"I was diagnosed two and a half months ago. The day I called you from the hospital, the day you were with Emily, I had just had a hysterectomy. They took everything out, Mark. My uterus, my cervix, my ovaries. Everything."

I let the clinical, brutal words sink in. I wanted him to understand the reality of it.

While he was comforting his crying protégé, I was lying in a hospital bed, recovering from having parts of my body cut out. While he was picking out a diamond necklace with his mistress, I was being told I would never be able to have another child.

I remembered lying in that sterile room, scrolling through the local news on my phone to pass the time. And there he was. A picture of Mark and Emily at a high-profile charity gala. The article called her his "protégé and close companion." It was dated the night of my surgery. He had told me he had an unavoidable, last-minute business dinner he couldn't miss. He had lied. He went to a party with her while I was alone, scared, and in pain.

Seeing him with her in the cafe today wasn't a shock. It was just the final, ugly piece of the puzzle falling into place.

He was still staring at me, speechless. For the first time, he looked truly lost.

"Why... why didn' t you tell me?" he finally stammered.

"You were busy," I said, my voice flat. "You were busy with your business meetings. You were busy with Emily. You were busy agreeing to a divorce you had no intention of following through on. When were you free for me to tell you I had cancer, Mark?"

The question was rhetorical. I didn't expect an answer. I didn't want one.

I looked at him, at this stranger sitting in my living room, and I felt nothing but a vast, cold distance. The love I once had for him had been eroded by years of neglect, and now, it had been completely annihilated by his betrayal.

"I' m done," I said, standing up. "I' m not waiting for you anymore. I' m not fighting for this anymore. It' s over."

I was finally, completely, letting him go.