Chapter 2: The Photo on Arnold's Phone
My stomach dropped.
"Arnold.
Where is my husband?"
He looked away.
His jaw tightened like he was fighting something back.
"Please," I said.
"You're scaring me."
He finally looked at me — and what I saw in his eyes wasn't grief.
It was guilt.
"He's been asking us not to say anything.
For months."
"Say anything about *what?*"
Arnold reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his phone.
His hand was shaking as he turned the screen toward me.
It was a photo.
Ben.
Sitting in a hospital room — not as a doctor.
As a patient.
The lunch bag slipped from my fingers.
"How long?" I whispered.
"Since last spring."
Last spring.
That was fourteen months ago.
Fourteen months of "rough nights." Fourteen months of empty side of the bed.
Fourteen months of me thinking I was losing him to *work.*
"Does he know I'm here?"
Arnold nodded slowly.
"Then why isn't he coming out?"
He hesitated.
Then, quietly:
"Because he didn't want you to see him like this.
And because…
there's something else.
Something he still hasn't told you."
Before I could ask what he meant, my phone buzzed.
A text from Ben.
*Please don't come in.
I'll explain everything tonight.
I promise.*
I stared at those words.
Then I looked up at Arnold.
"What room is he in?"
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What Ben was hiding goes far deeper than anyone at that hospital wanted her to know.
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