Chapter 5: What Kathryn Knew That Austin Didn't
I sat across from her at the kitchen table — the same table where she had once rearranged my spice rack while I stood three feet away pretending not to notice.
She wrapped both hands around her mug again.
A habit, I was starting to understand.
Something to hold when she didn't know what to do with her hands.
"Austin doesn't know I'm going to tell you this," she said.
"Then why are you?"
She looked at me for a long moment.
"Because I've been watching you for three years, and I've been unfair to you.
And because what's coming is going to be harder than Austin is letting on, and you deserve to know what you're walking into."
I kept my face still.
"The prognosis," she said.
"He told you it was cautiously good."
"Yes."
"The first specialist said that.
The one he went to alone." She paused.
"The second opinion was different."
The kitchen felt very quiet.
"How different?" I said.
"The second doctor said the first assessment was optimistic.
That the imaging showed something the first doctor had underweighted." She stopped.
Pressed her lips together.
"Austin came to me after that appointment.
He sat in my kitchen and he cried.
He hadn't cried since he was a boy."
I thought about him driving two hours alone to a specialist.
Driving two hours back.
Coming home and telling me he'd had a long day at work.
"What did the second doctor say exactly?"
"That it was treatable.
But that treatable and curable are not the same thing.
That the next twelve months would determine a great deal." She looked down at the mug.
"He made me promise not to tell you.
He said he needed time to process it himself before he could explain it to you.
I thought — I believed him when he said he would tell you.
That he just needed a few weeks."
"That was seven months ago."
"Yes."
"And you kept his secret for seven months."
"He's my son."
"And I'm his wife." I said it without heat.
Just as a fact that needed to be in the room.
She nodded slowly.
"I know.
And I was wrong to keep it.
I told myself I was respecting his wishes, but the truth is —" She stopped again.
"Say it," I said.
"The truth is I didn't trust you to handle it the right way.
I thought you would panic.
Or make it about yourself.
Or push him to make decisions he wasn't ready for." She met my eyes.
"I was wrong about that.
I could see it even as I was thinking it, but I let myself believe it anyway because it was easier than admitting I was afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"That if you knew how serious it was, you would leave." Her voice was steady but her hands tightened around the mug.
"That you would decide it was too much and go.
And then he would have no one except us.
And we are not young, and we cannot —" She stopped.
Drew a breath.
"I couldn't let that happen to him."
The chair scraped against the tile as I shifted my weight.
"Kathryn," I said.
"I'm not going anywhere."
She looked up.
"I don't know what Austin and I are going to work through.
I don't know how angry I'm going to be tomorrow or next week or next month.
But I am not going to leave my husband because he is sick." I held her gaze.
"That was never a possibility.
Not for one second."
Something moved across her face.
Not relief exactly.
Something older than relief.
Like a weight she had been carrying so long she had forgotten it was there, shifting slightly.
"I didn't know that," she said quietly.
"You didn't ask."
She looked down.
"No.
I didn't."
We sat in silence for a moment.
Outside, a car passed.
The refrigerator hummed.
"The document," I said.
"The beneficiary form.
There isn't one.
Austin never finished the paperwork.
I'm still listed."
She absorbed that without surprise.
"I thought as much.
He's not organized enough to have actually done it."
A startled sound came out of me — not quite a laugh, but close.
Kathryn's mouth moved.
Almost a smile.
Gone quickly.
"What happens now?" she said.
"Now," I said, "Austin comes downstairs and the three of us have an honest conversation.
About his health.
About what the next twelve months actually look like.
About what I need to know and what support looks like and what we are all going to do differently."
"He won't like that."
"No," I agreed.
"He won't."
I pushed my chair back and stood up.
"Kathryn." She looked up at me.
"I'm going to need you to stop going through my things.
Whatever happens from here — I need that to stop."
She held my gaze.
"Yes," she said.
"That's fair."
I went to the bottom of the stairs.
"Austin," I called up.
"Come down.
Now."
May you like
A long pause from upstairs.
Then the sound of footsteps.
