Returning home that night, I found my wife, Eleanor, in the kitchen arranging the dinner setting. I took her hand, begged her to halt and sit with me for a moment, because I had to tell her something vital: I want a divorce. She lingered in silence, then only asked why. I had no answer, and my silence pushed her into a frenzy we never ate, she screamed incoherently, fell quiet, and erupted again By dawn she had been sobbing for hours. I understood the hurt, but I could offer no comfortI had stopped loving Eleanor and had fallen for Claire, a woman Id met at work.
Feeling the weight of guilt, I handed her a settlement paper, promising to leave her the flat and the car, but she ripped the document to shreds and flung the pieces out the window, then began to cry again. I felt nothing but a gnawing remorse the woman with whom Id spent ten years now felt like a stranger.
I regretted the decade wed lived together and was desperate to cast off the shackles and chase the new, true love. The next morning, a note lay on the nightstand outlining the terms of our separation: Eleanor begged me to postpone the filing for a month and, in that time, keep up the façade of a happy family for the sake of our son, Oliver, who had upcoming exams. She added a strange request on our wedding day shed carried me into our first flat in my arms, and now she wanted me to carry her out of the bedroom each morning for the whole month.
Since Claire entered my life, the physical contact with Eleanor had dwindled to shared breakfasts, shared dinners, and separate sides of the bed. So when I lifted her in my arms for the first time after the long pause, a strange turmoil rose within me Olivers delighted applause snapped me back to reality Eleanors face wore a faint, forced smile, and I felt an inexplicable ache. The bedroom was only ten metres from the dining room; as I carried her, she closed her eyes and whispered barely audible, Please dont tell Oliver about the divorce until the agreed date.
On the second day the role of the cheerful, devoted husband came a little easier. Eleanor rested her head on my shoulder, and I realized how long I had stopped noticing the little traits I once adored, traits that no longer resembled the ones from ten years ago By the fourth day, lifting her again, I could not help but think of the ten years she had given me On the fifth day my chest tightened at the vulnerability of her frail frame as she clung to me. Each day the task of carrying her out of the bedroom grew less burdensome.
One morning I caught her standing indecisively over her wardrobe; in the months that had passed, the clothes seemed to have grown enormous on her. It struck me then how thin and gaunt she had become. That is why my load lightened with each passing day The realization struck me like a blow to the solar plexus. Instinctively I stroked her hair. Eleanor called Oliver over and embraced us both tightly. Tears welled in my throat, but I turned away, unable and unwilling to change my decision. I lifted her once more and carried her from the bedroom. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I pressed her to my chest as fiercely as on our wedding day.
In the final days of the agreed month, a storm of confusion roiled inside me. Something had shifted, a turning point I could not name I went to Claire and told her I would not divorce Eleanor. On the drive home I reflected that the monotony of family life does not stem from love fading, but from people forgetting the significance each holds for the other. I veered off the main road, stopped to buy a bouquet, and attached a card that read: Ill carry you in my arms until the last day of your life. Breathless with nerves, I entered the house, the flowers trembling in my hand. I searched every room until I found Eleanor in the bedroom, lifeless For months, while I floated on a cloud of infatuation with Claire, my wife had silently battled a grave illness.
Knowing she had little time left, she summoned the last of her strength to shield Oliver from stress and preserve his image of me as a good father and loving husband
