“…Maya?”
My voice cracked as her name escaped my lips. She turned slowly, her hollow eyes searching me as though I were a stranger. For a moment, I almost wished I was—because the look in her eyes was worse than any nightmare I had conjured in the last two months.
“Arjun,” she whispered. Her voice was so faint it felt as if the air might carry it away.
I wanted to hug her, to take her frail body into my arms, but something about her posture held me back. She wasn’t just thinner. She was… diminished, as if life had drained from her piece by piece.
“What happened?” I stammered. “Why are you here? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She gave a small, sad smile. “We’re not husband and wife anymore, Arjun. You gave up that right.”
Her words stabbed, but I couldn’t deny them.
The Diagnosis
I begged her to let me sit with her. Finally, she nodded. For several long minutes we sat in silence, interrupted only by the soft hiss of the IV. Then she spoke:
“It’s leukemia. They found it a month ago.”
I felt the corridor tilt beneath me. Leukemia? My sweet Maya, who had once hummed while watering her plants, who made the softest chapatis and always kept our house smelling of jasmine oil—how could something so cruel take root in her body?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice cracked.
She shrugged weakly. “We were already over. You had your own life. Why burden you?”
I clenched my fists. “Don’t ever say that again. You are not a burden.”
Memories That Haunt
Her eyes drifted away, and I saw her as she used to be: sitting on our old balcony, knitting tiny sweaters we never got to use, laughing at silly sitcoms, crying silently when the pregnancy tests turned negative. And me—I had turned away, convincing myself that silence meant she no longer needed me.
In that hallway, the truth crashed over me: I hadn’t left because she failed me. I had left because I was too weak to face her pain.
Rohit’s Intervention
When I finally reached Rohit’s room, he was propped up with bandages and tubes but still found the strength to raise an eyebrow. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said.
I told him everything. His laughter vanished. “So she’s been fighting this alone? My God, Arjun, what were you doing all this time?”
“I didn’t know!” My voice rose, earning a nurse’s glare. “She never said a word.”
“Maybe because she thought you wouldn’t listen,” Rohit said bluntly. His words burned because they were true.
“Then what do I do now?”
“You stand by her,” he said. “It’s not too late—unless you walk away again.”
The Weeks that Followed
From that day, I visited Maya every afternoon. At first she resisted. “You don’t have to,” she murmured, staring at the white walls.
But I did. I sat through her chemo sessions, brought her warm soup from the canteen, read aloud from her favorite novels when her hands trembled too much to hold them.
Sometimes she talked. Other times, she drifted into silence. But even in her silence, I stayed.
One evening, as I adjusted her blanket, she whispered, “Why now, Arjun? Why didn’t you fight for me when we were married?”
Tears blurred my vision. “Because I was a coward. Because I thought leaving would hurt less than watching you suffer. I was wrong. I was so wrong.”
She closed her eyes, a tear sliding down her pale cheek.
A Flicker of Hope
Weeks turned into months. Slowly, Maya’s cheeks regained a hint of color. The doctors said her body was responding better than expected. It wasn’t a miracle, but it was hope.
One afternoon, as sunlight streamed through the hospital windows, she looked at me and said, “You don’t have to stay tied to me out of guilt. You deserve to move on.”
I shook my head. “Maya, don’t you understand? I don’t come here out of guilt. I come because I still love you. Divorce didn’t erase that. Nothing could.”
Her lips parted in surprise, then closed again as she looked away. But I saw the faintest curve of a smile.
A Quiet Reunion
By December, the doctors allowed her to return home for short intervals. I accompanied her to her parents’ house, carrying her bag as she leaned on my arm. It wasn’t like before—there was no shared apartment, no marriage vows binding us. But in those small walks, we began to find each other again.
We talked about our lost dreams—children we never had, a house we never bought—and then, cautiously, about new dreams. Not promises, but possibilities: a garden she wanted to plant, a photography class I wanted to take.
The heaviness between us began to lift, replaced by something fragile yet precious.
The Letter
One evening, she handed me an envelope. “Read this later,” she said.
That night, in my apartment, I unfolded her shaky handwriting:
Arjun,
If my time is short, I want you to remember this: our love was real. Even when I was broken, even when you were distant, it was real. Don’t let regret chain you forever. Live fully. And if fate allows me to stay longer… maybe we can try again. Not as we were, but as who we are now.
Maya
The paper trembled in my hands as I wept.
Epilogue
It has been a year since that day in the hospital hallway. Maya is still fighting, but she’s here. We walk together in the park when she feels strong, we laugh at silly sitcoms again, we hold hands in quiet gratitude.
We are not the same couple we once were. Perhaps we never will be. But sometimes, broken pieces can form a new shape—different, imperfect, but still beautiful.
That day, when I saw her in the hospital gown, I thought everything was falling apart. But in truth, it was the beginning of a new chapter—one written not with anger or silence, but with courage, forgiveness, and a love that refused to die.