“He’s upstairs.”
“Why?” Arnold hesitated for a fraction of a second, shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. “Because he asked us not to contact you.”
I felt as though someone had struck me across the face with an open hand. “Not to contact me?”
He nodded slowly, his eyes heavy with profound exhaustion. “He specifically told us that if you came looking for him, we should—” He stopped abruptly mid-sentence.
“Should what?” I demanded, my voice rising sharply against the sterile hospital walls.
“Give him time.”
I let out a short, harsh laugh—an ugly, humorless sound that echoed down the corridor. “Give him time?”
I looked down at the lunch bag in my hand. The homemade apple pie suddenly seemed ridiculous, a pathetic prop in a tragedy I didn’t yet understand. I had spent twenty agonizing minutes slicing those apples exactly the way he liked them, meticulously trimming the pastry edges. Now, I was standing in the middle of a hospital wing while my husband was apparently hiding from me.
“Arnold,” I whispered, my voice trembling, “what is happening?”
His eyes filled with fresh tears. “I wish I could tell you.”
“You can.”
“No. I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Ben made me promise.”
The Crumpled Envelope
Arnold looked anxiously down the deserted corridor, checking to see if anyone was listening, before lowering his voice to a ragged murmur. “That if you came here, I wasn’t supposed to tell you until he was ready.”
“Ready for what?”
Arnold didn’t answer. Instead, his gaze dropped to his hands, and that was when I saw it: a small, crumpled white envelope clutched tightly in his fist. My name was written across the front in familiar, hurried handwriting. My stomach plummeted as if I had just stepped off a ledge.
“Is that for me?”
Arnold instinctively closed his fingers tighter around it. “Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you give it to me?”
“Because I wasn’t sure I should.”
I held out my hand, my palm flat and demanding. “Give it to me, Arnold.”
He hesitated for a long, agonizing moment before slowly placing the envelope in my palm. My fingers were trembling so badly the paper rustled. I recognized Ben’s handwriting immediately—the sharp loops, the hurried slants. There was no stamp, no postal mark, no date. Just three simple, devastating words written across the back flap: Please forgive me.
