Chapter 3 - Behind Closed DoorsDr. Vance’s office was small, sterile, and smelled faintly of old coffee and disinfectant. The walls were lined with framed medical degrees from Johns Hopkins and numerous plaques recognizing excellence in cardiovascular care.
I didn't sit down in the leather guest chair. I stood rigidly by the door, my hands trembling as I stared at the doctor.
"Start talking," I demanded, my voice sharp with a terror I couldn't mask. "What is wrong with my wife—with my ex-wife? Why is she in the cardiac wing? Why does she look like she’s dying?"
Dr. Vance closed the frosted glass door behind us, walked slowly around her mahogany desk, and sat down. She clasped her hands together on top of a thick manila folder labeled CROSS, SOPHIA.
"Mr. Cross, how long were you and Sophie separated before your divorce was finalized?" she asked calmly.
"Two months since the papers were signed," I answered, my jaw tightening. "We were married for five years. Why does that matter?"
"It matters because Sophie has been carrying a diagnosis that she deliberately kept hidden from you for the last fourteen months of your marriage," Dr. Vance said, her voice dropping into a solemn, heavy cadence.
The room seemed to tilt on its axis. "Hidden from me? What are you talking about?"
Dr. Vance opened the folder, sliding a series of color-coded cardiac scans and lab reports across the desk. "Sophie suffers from a rare, aggressive form of peripartum cardiomyopathy complicated by chronic autoimmune myocarditis. It’s a progressive degeneration of the heart muscle triggered during her first pregnancy loss. Her heart function hasn't been above thirty percent in over a year."
I stared at the scans, my mind refusing to process the medical jargon. "No... that's impossible. She never went to the hospital for heart trouble. She was tired sometimes, yes, but we thought it was just grief! We thought it was depression from the miscarriages!"
"Because she masked it," Dr. Vance corrected sharply, her eyes boring into mine with unflinching severity. "Do you have any idea what it takes for a patient in her condition to function on a daily basis? Every breath she took required twice the effort of a healthy person. Every step she walked was an exercise in sheer willpower. And she didn't tell you because—according to her psychological intake notes—she knew you were already drowning under the weight of your own grief, and she refused to let her failing body become another burden you would resent her for."
The words hit me like a barrage of physical blows. I stumbled backward, my hand catching the edge of a bookshelf to steady myself.
Another burden you would resent her for.
My mind flashed back to the endless nights I had complained about work while Sophie sat quietly on the couch, sipping chamomile tea. I remembered the arguments where I accused her of being "distant" and "withdrawn." I remembered the night I told her I wanted a divorce because our home felt like a graveyard.
She wasn't distant. She was fighting a silent, losing war to keep her heart beating inside a marriage where her husband was too emotionally bankrupt to notice she was dying.
"Is... is she on the transplant list?" I choked out, tasting bile at the back of my throat. "Can she get a new heart? I'll pay for whatever it takes. I'll sell the car, I'll drain my savings—"
Dr. Vance didn't answer immediately. She slowly closed the manila folder, her expression turning grim.
"She was on the regional transplant registry, Mr. Cross," Dr. Vance said quietly. "Until three days ago."
May you like
My blood ran cold. "What do you mean... until three days ago?"
"Sophie formally signed a DNR—a Do Not Resuscitate order—and removed herself from the active donor queue," Dr. Vance replied steadily. "She told our ethics committee that she had nothing left to fight for. She said her husband had already let her go, and she saw no reason to force a heart to beat in a chest that had already been abandoned."
