“You let me quit my career,” I said quietly. “You let me become a mother without telling me I might end up raising these boys alone.”
His face crumbled instantly.
“I wanted you to have a family.”
“No,” I replied through shaking tears. “You wanted to control what happened after you died.”
He covered his face.
“I thought I was protecting you,” he admitted. “But really… I was protecting myself from seeing whether you’d stay.”
That hurt more than everything else.
“You should’ve trusted me enough to choose for myself,” I whispered.
He cried openly then.
But this time, I didn’t comfort him.
Not yet.
“I came back because Matthew and William deserve their father,” I said firmly. “And because if we still have time left, we are going to live it honestly.”
Telling our families was brutal.
Joshua’s sister was furious.
“You made her become a mother while secretly preparing to die?” she shouted. “What were you thinking?”
My mother spoke more quietly, but her disappointment cut deeper.
“You should’ve trusted your wife with the truth.”
Joshua accepted every word without arguing.
For once, he had no defense.
The months afterward became a blur of hospitals, medications, tantrums, exhaustion, and fear.
Joshua grew thinner.
His hoodies hung loosely from his body.
One evening, I walked past the office and discovered him recording videos for the twins.
“If you’re watching this someday,” he whispered through tears, “just know I loved you from the first moment I saw you.”
I quietly closed the door before he noticed me.
Later that night, Matthew climbed into Joshua’s lap.
“Please don’t die, Daddy,” he whispered.
William handed him a toy truck.
“So you can still play with us later.”
