“From me?”
“Of myself.
His voice broke.
“If you’re getting older. Realizing that I was no longer the same man you married.
The tears slipped back down my face.
During that whole time, I had believed that I was the only one terrified to grow old.
But the man who slept next to me had been living with the same fear.
We just never talked about it.
I reached out to yours.
I was unfaithful to you.
Robert didn’t rush to comfort me.
He didn’t say nothing was wrong.
He didn’t tell me to forget.
And somehow, I was grateful that I didn’t.
He simply said:
“Yes.
That one word hurt.
Because it was true.
Do you think you could ever forgive me?
Robert watched me for a long time.
I don’t know.
I slowly nodded.
It was also a sincere answer.
Then he stood up.
For a terrible second, I thought he’d leave.
Instead, he took my blanket, gently raised it on my shoulders and sat down again.
I’m not leaving tonight. You’re in the hospital.
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“And tomorrow?”
He looked at me.
“Tomorrow we go home. You’ll tell me everything. And I’ll tell you everything I’ve been hiding from you.
He paused.
“Then we will decide if there is still something left of those thirty-seven years worth saving.
I squeezed his hand.
That night I went to a hotel believing that I needed a younger man to feel a woman again.
But, lying in that hospital bed, I finally understood something painfully simple.
Robert and I had been terrified of getting old.
We had just both felt too embarrassed to tell us.
I didn’t know if I’d forgive myself.
I didn’t know if our marriage would survive.
But I knew one thing.
The red lingerie he had used for another man had never been the real problem.
The real problem was two people who had spent years sleeping side by side while hiding precisely the fears that were slowly separating them.
