“Ethan… you shouldn’t be here,” Sophie whispered, her voice barely audible above the rhythmic beep of the cardiac monitors behind her.
She pulled her hospital gown tighter around her shoulders, trying to hide the thin tubing connected to her IV line.
“What happened to you?” I choked out, dropping to my knees beside her chair. “Sophie, why didn’t you call me? Why is your hair… why are you in the cardiac unit?”
She stared down at her lap, her trembling fingers tracing the edge of her hospital bracelet. “Because the miscarriages weren’t just bad luck, Ethan. My body was failing. My heart couldn’t handle the strain, but the doctors didn’t catch the underlying autoimmune disorder until it was almost too late.”
The room seemed to tilt. Every argument, every late night I had spent buried in spreadsheets at the office, flashed through my mind like a nightmare. She hadn’t been pulling away out of falling out of love—she had been fighting a silent, terrifying battle for her life.
Why had she signed the divorce papers so easily? Continue reading Part 3 below to discover her secret motive.
