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“Josh, are you okay?”
He barely looked up from his screen. “Just tired. It’s been a long day.”
“Are you… I mean, are you happy?”
He closed his laptop a little too hard. “Hanna, you know I am. We wanted this, right?”
I nodded, but something twisted in my chest.
“I mean, are you happy?”
Then, one afternoon, the boys finally napped at the same time. I tiptoed down the hall, desperate for a moment to breathe. I passed Joshua’s office and heard him, his voice low, almost pleading.
“I can’t keep lying to her. She thinks I wanted a family with her…”
My hand flew to my mouth. He was talking about me.
I pressed closer, my heart thudding.
“But I didn’t adopt the boys because of this,” Joshua said, on the verge of tears.
There was a pause, then a rough sob.
“I can’t keep lying to her.”
I froze, caught between running and needing to know more. I heard him again, softer.
“I can’t do this, Dr. Samson. I can’t watch her figure it out after I’m gone. She deserves more than that. But if I tell her… she’ll fall apart. She gave up her whole life for this. I just, I just wanted to know she wouldn’t be alone.”
My legs went numb. My hands shook so hard I had to grab the doorframe.
Joshua was crying now. “How long did you say, Doc?”
There was a pause.
“A year? That’s all I have left?”
The silence on the other side of the door stretched, and Joshua started to cry again.
“I can’t do this, Dr. Samson.”
I stepped back, stumbling. The world felt tilted and unreal. I clung to the banister, trying to catch my breath.
He’d been planning his exit. He had let me quit my job, become a mother, and build my whole life around a future he already knew he might not be in.
He didn’t trust me to face the truth with him, so he made the choice for both of us.
I wanted to scream. Instead, I walked straight into our bedroom, packed a bag for myself and the twins, and called my sister, Caroline.
“Can you take us in tonight?” My voice sounded alien.
She didn’t ask questions. “I’ll sort out the guest room now.”
“Can you take us in tonight?”
The next hour passed in a blur, pajamas stashed into bags, stuffed toys carried under arms, and William’s favorite book. The boys barely woke as I buckled them into their car seats. I left Joshua a note on the kitchen table:
“Don’t call. I need time.”
At Caroline’s, I fell apart for the first time. I didn’t sleep. I just stared at the ceiling, running through every conversation we’d had for the past six months.
In the morning, with the boys coloring quietly on the living room rug, my mind kept circling that name: Dr. Samson.
I fell apart for the first time.