The hum of the oxygen concentrator is the only sound in Room 204 of the palliative care facility. You have been living in this sterile, white room for two months. The nurses know you as the quiet woman with no emergency contacts and no visitors. That was exactly how you planned it.

Six months ago, you packed two suitcases, stood in the living room of the home you built with your husband, Andrew, and lied to his face. You ignored the soft glow of the nightlight spilling from your two-year-old son's bedroom down the hall. You told him you didn't love him anymore. You told him you felt suffocated, that there was someone else, and you dropped the divorce papers on the coffee table before walking out. You ignored his tears, his begging, and the way his voice broke as he chased you to the driveway.

You had to do it. Three days prior, an oncologist had given you a diagnosis of late-stage glioblastoma. Inoperable. Six to eight months left. You knew Andrew better than anyone; if he knew, he would have drained your joint savings, sold the house, quit his job, and destroyed his own mental health trying to find a miracle cure that didn't exist. He would have dragged your little boy through a living nightmare of sterile waiting rooms and fading hope. You wanted him to hate you. You wanted him to move on, find someone healthy, be the father your son deserved, and forget you.

But yesterday, your condition rapidly deteriorated. You lost consciousness, and in the administrative panic, the hospital searched your legal records. They discovered that the divorce was never finalized. Andrew had never signed the papers. Legally, he was still your next-of-kin. So, they called him.

The heavy door to your room clicks open. You keep your eyes shut, assuming it is one of the nurses bringing in your morning painkillers. But the footsteps on the linoleum are too heavy. Too slow. Too familiar.

You open your eyes.

Andrew is standing at the foot of your bed. The sight of him makes your chest tighten painfully. He looks exhausted. He has lost weight, and dark circles shadow his eyes, a physical manifestation of the grief you forced upon him as he suddenly had to navigate raising a toddler with a shattered heart. But as he steps closer, your gaze falls to his left hand resting on the metal bedrail.

The silver wedding band is still on his ring finger. He never took it off.

He doesn't yell. He doesn't ask why you lied about an affair, or how you could bear to walk away from your own child. He simply stares at your frail, pale state, taking in the IV lines bruised into your arms and the monitors tracking your failing heart. He pulls the plastic visitor’s chair right to the edge of your mattress and sits down heavily.

Reaching into his coat pocket, Andrew pulls out the divorce papers you left on the coffee table six months ago. The edges are worn and crumpled. Without breaking eye contact with you, he tears the thick packet in half. Then into quarters. He lets the pieces fall into the trash bin beside the bed.

He leans forward, his hands trembling slightly as he carefully reaches out to take your cold, needle-marked hand in his. He rests his forehead against your knuckles, and you feel a hot tear slip onto your skin.

"Did you really think," his voice is a hoarse, ragged whisper, completely devoid of the hatred you tried so hard to build, "that I wouldn't want to be here for this? That I wouldn't want to be your husband until the very last second?"

"Leo asked for you every single night," he chokes out, his thumb weakly stroking the back of your hand. "I had to tell our two-year-old his mother was gone, while all along you were in a hospital bed alone."

He lifts his head, his red, tear-filled eyes locking onto yours with an unwavering, heartbreaking stubbornness.

"I'm not going anywhere. It's your turn to deal with it."