PART 2

The doctor’s words hung between us.

“You’re her husband.”

For one fragile second, the truth waited on my tongue.

Ex-husband.

The word was simple. Legal. Final.

But Maya’s fingers were still gripping my sleeve, so weakly that anyone else might not have noticed. I noticed. I noticed because once, years ago, she used to hold my hand exactly like that when we crossed busy streets, as if trusting me was as natural as breathing.

So I said nothing.

The doctor adjusted his glasses and glanced down at the file.

“I’m Dr. Mehra,” he said. “Maya’s hematologist. We were just about to discuss her latest reports.”

Maya slowly pulled away from my arms, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. She looked embarrassed, as if crying in front of me were some failure of discipline.

I wanted to tell her she never had to be strong in front of me again.

Instead, I simply asked, “Can I come in?”

She looked at me.

For the first time since I had seen her in that hallway, something like hope flickered across her face.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Dr. Mehra led us into a small consultation room that smelled faintly of sanitizer and old paper. Maya sat carefully in the chair across from the desk. I sat beside her, close enough that our elbows almost touched, yet not close enough to presume anything.

The doctor opened the file.

“Maya has acute myeloid leukemia,” he said gently.

I had heard the word before, but now it had teeth.

He explained the treatment. The chemotherapy. The response. The blood counts. The infection risks. The need for more tests. A possible bone marrow transplant if her body did not respond strongly enough in the next cycle.

I tried to listen like an adult, like a husband, like someone who deserved to sit beside her.

But my mind kept returning to one image: Maya alone in this chair, hearing these words without anyone beside her.

I looked at her hands folded in her lap.

They were thinner than I remembered.

“When is the next cycle?” I asked.

“Monday,” Dr. Mehra said. “She will need to be admitted.”

Maya immediately looked down.

“How long?” I asked.

“Three to four weeks, depending on her recovery.”

Three to four weeks.

I turned to her. “You were going to do this alone?”

She gave a tiny shrug.

“I’ve done it before.”

The room went silent.

Dr. Mehra looked at me then, not with accusation, but with the quiet sadness of a man who had seen too many families arrive late to suffering.

May you like

“Maya will need support,” he said. “Emotional support matters. Practical support too. Meals, transport, monitoring fever, medication schedules.”

“I’ll do it,” I said.

Maya’s head snapped toward me.

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ll do it,” I repeated.

Her eyes filled again. “Arjun, we’re not—”

“I know what we are legally,” I said softly. “But I also know what we were before I let silence ruin us.”

She looked away.

Dr. Mehra closed the file, giving us privacy without leaving the room.

After the appointment, I walked Maya to the hospital pharmacy. She moved slowly, as though every step cost more than she wanted to admit. I wanted to carry her. I wanted to rewind time. I wanted to drag my old self into that hallway and force him to see what he had been too proud, too tired, too blind to notice.

Instead, I held her prescription bag and matched my pace to hers.

At the hospital entrance, she stopped.

“You should go back to work,” she said.

“I’m not going back to work.”

“Arjun.”

“Maya.”

She sighed, but there was no anger in it. Only exhaustion.

“My apartment is close,” she said. “I can take a cab.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“You don’t even know where I live now.”

That sentence landed harder than it should have.

I didn’t know where my wife lived.

I didn’t know her treatment schedule.

I didn’t know she had been sick for months.

I knew nothing.

“Then tell me,” I said.

She studied my face for a moment, as if searching for the trick in my kindness. Then she gave me the address.

Her apartment was on the third floor of an old building with peeling paint and a broken elevator. When I saw the stairs, I looked at her in disbelief.

“I manage.”

“You have leukemia and you climb three floors?”

She smiled faintly. “Very slowly.”

I wanted to laugh, but it came out like pain.

Inside, her apartment was small and clean, but too quiet. A blue shawl lay folded over the sofa. Medicine strips lined the kitchen counter. A stack of hospital papers sat beside a half-finished cup of tea.

There were no photographs of us.

I noticed immediately.

She noticed me noticing.

“I packed them away,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because some mornings I needed to survive breakfast.”

I turned toward the window so she would not see what that did to me.

She went to the kitchen and reached for a glass, but her hand shook. I took it from her before she could protest and filled it with water.

“Sit,” I said.

Her eyebrows lifted. “You’re giving orders now?”

“Yes.”

That made her smile properly for the first time.

It was small. Faint. Almost gone before it arrived.

But it was Maya.

My Maya.

That evening, I cooked for her.

Or tried to.

I found rice, lentils, a few vegetables, and spices arranged with the same care she had always brought into every kitchen we ever shared. But I burned the garlic and added too much salt to the dal.