Chapter 165
Chapter 165
Ethan
The flight back to Chicago felt like crossing a threshold I could never return through.
Mia slept against my shoulder for most of the journey, her hand curled loosely around mine as if even in sleep she feared I might slip away. I watched the clouds drift past the window and tried to memorize everything—the weight of her, the scent of her shampoo, the way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. These were the details I would need later, when the anesthesia pulled me under and I had nothing left but memory.
The twins launched themselves at us when we arrived home. Leo grabbed my leg and refused to let go, while Lily demanded to be lifted immediately, her imperious little hands reaching skyward. I gathered them both and breathed them in.
"Daddy missed you," I said, and my voice cracked.
Mia caught the break—I saw it in the slight furrow of her brow. But Rosa was already bustling in with dinner preparations, the children were clamoring for attention, and the moment passed like so many others in our marriage: noted but not pursued.
That night, after Mia fell asleep, I slipped into my study where the documents waited.
The trust modifications ran to forty-seven pages—provisions ensuring Mia's complete financial independence, the children's education and healthcare guaranteed regardless of what happened between us, my mother's influence permanently curtailed. The divorce papers sat in a separate folder, unsigned but complete, with terms my lawyers had called "inadvisable": full custody for Mia, the house in her name, support payments that would make her independently wealthy.
I stared at papers I couldn't bring myself to sign.
Not yet. After she's stable. After she's moved on.
The headache had been building since New York, a dull pressure behind my left eye that medication could only dull. The doctor's latest scans showed "concerning progression"—the tumor had grown three millimeters, pressing against structures controlling vision, balance, memory. The Swiss team wanted me within two weeks. Every day I delayed increased surgical risk by a percentage point they had calculated with terrifying precision.
But I couldn't leave yet. Not while Mia still looked at me with hope. Not while she still believed we were building something.
First, I had to make her stop believing.
---
The withdrawal began subtly.
Monday, I left before Mia woke, leaving only a note: Early meeting. Don't wait up.
She texted at noon: Lunch tomorrow? That Italian place you liked?
I stared at the message for seventeen minutes before responding: Swamped this week. Rain check?
Three words. Each one a small betrayal.
Tuesday, I canceled dinner with Marcus and his wife. Wednesday, I "forgot" to respond to her photos of the twins until midnight, sending only a single heart emoji. Thursday, when she called during lunch, I let it ring to voicemail.
I watched myself become the man I had been before—distant, distracted, perpetually elsewhere. The old patterns slipped back like a coat I had never fully discarded. The difference was that now I understood what I was destroying.
---
Friday brought a hospital visit I couldn't avoid.
"The Swiss team is ready," Dr. Reeves said, his voice carefully neutral. "But that timeline becomes problematic if we wait much longer."
"Two more weeks."
"Mr. Wentworth." He removed his glasses slowly. "Every day you delay increases your surgical mortality risk by approximately point-five percent. In two weeks, we're looking at an additional five to seven percent chance of a negative outcome."
Negative outcome. Medical speak for death.
"I understand. Two weeks."
"Is there anyone you'd like us to contact? A family member who should be aware?"
Mia's face flashed through my mind—her expression in New York, open and trusting, her hand warm in mine on the Brooklyn Bridge.
"No. There's no one."
---
That night, I waited until the house was silent before making my way to the nursery.
The twins slept in matching cribs, their small bodies curled toward each other. Leo had kicked off his blanket. Lily clutched her stuffed elephant with fierce possessiveness.
I lowered myself into the rocking chair and pulled out my phone.
"Hey," I said quietly, angling the camera to capture both sleeping faces. "It's Dad. You're asleep, which is probably for the best—I'm not great at this." A pause, a struggle to find words. "I wanted you to have something, later, in case..."
I couldn't finish.
"I love you," I said finally, barely above a whisper. "Both of you. More than I knew I was capable of. Whatever happens... whatever you hear about me later... please remember that."
I saved the video to the folder I had created last week: For Leo and Lily. Inside were a dozen similar recordings—me reading stories, singing half-remembered lullabies, trying to compress a lifetime of fatherhood into digital fragments.
A knock at the door shattered my concentration.
Marcus stood in the hallway, his expression tight with barely contained fury.
"You look like shit," he said.
"Always a pleasure."
"I'm serious." He stepped closer, voice dropping. "Mia texted Sarah tonight asking if I knew why you've been 'distant lately.' That's the word she used. Like she's trying to convince herself it's temporary."
"It is temporary."
"Bullshit." He closed the distance between us. "I know about the Swiss clinic. I know about the surgical consultations. And I know you've been making arrangements people only make when they think they're not coming back."
The fight went out of me. I sank into the rocking chair.
"You're my best friend," Marcus said, pulling up an ottoman. "You've been my best friend for twenty years. And you were going to disappear to Europe for brain surgery without telling anyone?"
"The survival rate is over eighty percent."
"Those are terrible odds for brain surgery." His voice softened. "What about Mia? What about those two kids?"
"I'm protecting them."
"You're protecting yourself." The words were almost gentle. "You're terrified that if you tell her, she'll stay. She'll put her whole life on hold, take care of you, and if you die anyway she'll be destroyed. So you're pushing her away first. Making her hate you so when you're gone, she'll recover faster."
The accuracy of it robbed me of breath.
"She deserves to be free," I said finally. "She's finally building the life she wanted. Her career, her independence—if she knew about this, she'd choose to stay. She'd sacrifice everything to sit by my hospital bed."
"She'd make her own choice. Like your partner."
"Someone has to protect her—"
"You're being a coward." The words landed like a slap. "You're so scared of being vulnerable that you'd rather die alone than let your wife love you through this."
I had no words left. Because he was right.
"What do you want me to do?" I asked, barely recognizing my own voice.
"Tell her. Tonight. Tomorrow. Before you push her so far she can't find her way back." His eyes were bright. "Let the people who love you help you live."
The twins stirred. Lily let out a small cry, and I lifted her automatically, settling her against my chest. She quieted, her small hand fisting in my shirt.
"I don't know how to need people," I admitted, looking at my daughter's face. "I don't know how to let myself be helped."
"Then learn." Marcus stood. "You learned to be a father. You learned to be a better husband. This isn't harder—it's just scarier."
He left me standing in the dark with my daughter in my arms and my son sleeping nearby and my wife was doubting if I really loved her.
My phone buzzed. A text from Mia: Missed you tonight. Everything okay?
I could tell her now. Could type the truth and let consequences fall.
Instead, I wrote: Long day. Get some sleep.
Then I put the phone away and continued rocking my daughter in the darkness, counting down the days I had left.