Chapter 4

Mark' s shock quickly curdled into anger. It was his default emotion, the one he always turned to when he felt a loss of control.

"Cancer?" he repeated, his voice rising. He stood up, knocking his knee against the coffee table. The flowers wobbled. "You have cancer and you' re telling me now? After two months?"

He wasn' t asking out of concern. He was accusing me.

"How could you keep that from me, Sarah? A hysterectomy? My God. Do you have any idea how this looks?"

I just stared at him. Not how it felt for me, not the fear, not the pain. How it looked. How it reflected on him. That was his first thought.

"There' s nothing to talk about, Mark," I said, my voice tired. I didn' t have the strength for one of our old fights. The kind that went in circles for hours, leaving me exhausted and him feeling vindicated.

"Nothing to talk about?" he shouted, pacing the room now. "This is our life! This affects me! It affects our family! You can' t just make a decision like that-to have major surgery-without even consulting me!"

"You weren' t available for consultation," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "You were at a gala with Emily."

That stopped him. He froze, his face a mask of fury and guilt.

"That was a work event!"

"Don' t lie to me anymore, Mark. I' m too tired to listen to it."

I turned to leave the room. I couldn' t stand to be near him for another second. The air was thick with his self-pity and rage.

"So that' s it?" he yelled at my back. "You drop this bomb on me and then you just walk away? Is this how you' re going to be now?"

I didn' t answer. I just kept walking up the stairs.

He didn't follow me. He never did. When things got difficult, when a conversation required actual emotional honesty, he left. A few minutes later, I heard the front door slam shut. The sound echoed through the silent house. He was gone.

This was his pattern. He would disappear for a few days, maybe a week. He wouldn't answer my calls. He would let me stew in my own anxiety and worry. Then, when he decided I had been punished enough, he would return, acting as if nothing had happened, expecting me to be so relieved to have him back that I would forget whatever we were fighting about.

I went into our bedroom. His scent lingered in the air. I went to the closet and pulled out a suitcase. Not a small overnight bag. A large one.

I started to pack. Not just my clothes, but Lily' s too. Her picture books, her favorite stuffed elephant, the little pink sweater she loved.

As I folded her tiny clothes, I thought about all the other times he had stormed out. The first time was just a year into our marriage, over something trivial, a burnt dinner. He was gone for two days. I was frantic. I called his parents, his friends. When he came back, he was angry that I had "made a scene." I apologized.

Another time, after Lily was born, I was exhausted and overwhelmed. I asked him to help with a nighttime feeding. He accused me of not appreciating how hard he worked and left for a hotel. He came back three days later with a ridiculously expensive bracelet. I apologized for being demanding.

Over and over, I had made myself smaller. I had bent my own needs around his ego. I had apologized for things that weren't my fault. I had accepted his gifts as apologies because it was easier than facing the truth: that the gifts weren't apologies, they were transactions. They were payments for my silence, for my compliance.

I zipped the final suitcase shut. This time, when he came back, the house would be empty. There would be no one waiting for him. No one to apologize to him for her own pain. This pattern was broken. I was done.