The Husband She Thought Would Never Leave

From school uniforms to wedding gowns, Sophie and I had been together for ten years. To support her career, I willingly became a stay-at-home husband. I thought this was the happiness I wanted— until the young man she kept on the side called me to show off. That was when I realized all my years of devotion meant less than a few times him calling her “baby.” My heart turned to ash. I decided to divorce her, but Sophie only said coldly, “Dream on if you think you’re getting half my money!” But I didn’t care. Because I was dying. Sophie had been working too much overtime lately, and she barely had an appetite. I made her favorite steak, but after taking one bite, she rushed to the bathroom and started gagging. I was worried and wanted to check on her, but her phone rang on the table. The number wasn’t saved. Without thinking, I picked it up for her. “Baby, are you really not coming over tonight? I even prepared something new…” Before I could hear the rest, Sophie suddenly snatched the phone from behind me. She glared at me, clearly irritated. “Who told you to touch my phone?” I froze. From the day we met to the day we got married, Sophie and I had spent ten years together. I thought I knew her well enough to trust her. I had never once gone through her phone. I never expected that answering one call for her would provoke such a strong reaction. Sophie realized she had overreacted. She immediately composed herself and softened her expression. “It’s a new intern at work,” she explained. “He calls me whenever he has a question.” “Oh? Do interns usually use that flirty voice when they talk to their supervisors? And what was that about preparing something new?” Sophie was momentarily speechless, then forced out an excuse. “He’s barely out of college. He jokes around like that and doesn’t know when to stop. Don’t overthink it. As for the ‘something new’… he probably meant he came up with a new proposal and needs me to approve it.” As if afraid I would keep digging, she turned toward the phone and cursed the person on the other end a few times. After the call ended, she slipped playfully into my arms like she always did. Then she pouted and asked, “Are you jealous? You’re almost thirty. Are you really going to pick a fight with some kid?” “Of course not.” I said it, but I didn’t mean it. Sophie had always been sensitive about her age. Once, a college student handing out flyers had called her “ma’am,” and she had been upset for the rest of the day. Yet now, in order to distance herself from the man on the phone, she kept calling him a “kid.” The way she tried to hide the truth only made the cracks more obvious. Maybe she felt guilty, because she stopped working overtime after that. She went grocery shopping with me, took walks with me and the dog, and acted just like she had when we first got married. But she often stared at her phone with a lovestruck smile. I didn’t want to investigate. I didn’t have much time left, and I only wanted to spend it in ignorant happiness. Unfortunately, the algorithm wasn’t about to let me. In the friend recommendations on my video account, I found Sophie’s flirty-voiced “kid.” His name was Jason Reed, and he was young, handsome, and built like a model. Every one of his videos had been posted during the hours Sophie claimed she was working overtime. In the videos, his faceless older-girlfriend type cooked for him, ironed his clothes, and listened patiently to him ramble about his boring daily life. But this “wonderful older woman” still had my initials tattooed on her wrist. “Honey, what’s wrong?” Sophie noticed me gripping my phone, my expression strange, and asked cautiously. But the next second, I dragged her into my arms and bit down hard on her collarbone. “Ah… that hurts! Ethan, stop!” I ignored her fists pounding against me and flipped her onto the couch. At that moment, all I wanted was to punish her—to brand her body with my mark all over again.Smack! The slap brought me back to my senses. My ears rang. I covered my right cheek as my eyes slowly reddened. Sophie thought she had hit me too hard and quickly sat up, trying to ease the tension. “I’m sorry, honey. You were acting so scary just now. I didn’t even think before I…” “Anyway… it’s not that I don’t want to. I just haven’t been feeling well lately. As for that kind of thing… let’s wait until next month.” Next month? Sophie had probably forgotten that it had been nearly six months since we had last slept together. That was around the same time she and her young boyfriend had uploaded their first video. I stayed silent. Sophie tried to comfort me a few more times, but then her phone rang. She glanced at me, pretending to be calm, and walked naturally to the window to answer it. “Yeah. Don’t worry. I’ll be there soon.” Then she turned to me. “Honey, I have to go out. Something came up at work.” I looked straight into her eyes. “Is it that intern from before?” Sophie hesitated, then immediately explained, “He’s young and can’t handle a lot of things on his own. He just wants help.” “Then fire him. Why keep someone so useless around?” Sophie clearly hadn’t expected me to say that. “Ethan, everyone makes mistakes when they’re young. Since when did you become so heartless?” There it was. For the sake of her little boyfriend, she couldn’t even be bothered to call me “honey” anymore. Sophie left without looking back. The moment the door closed, the apartment fell into complete silence. In the dark living room, only my mute dog kept me company. Seven years ago, Sophie and I had been on our way to city hall to get our marriage license when we found the stray mutt. Sophie said the first half of his life had been too miserable, so she named him Bean and decided we would raise him as our son. But two months ago, she had secretly taken Bean to have his vocal cords removed. She had come home too late the night before and didn’t want his barking to disturb her sleep the next day. Apparently, both Bean and I had become burdens she was sick of. I held Bean on the couch and refreshed someone’s video page again and again. Sure enough, he had posted another video. “The tie my girlfriend picked out for me. I’m meeting an important client tomorrow. Which one looks best?” Jason modeled three different outfits. In one, he tugged at the tie around his neck, his shirt open wide enough to expose his throat and muscular chest. In another, he used the tie as a suggestive prop, binding his hands behind his back or covering his eyes. So this was the kind of thing Sophie liked now? She must have been having too much fun to remember the time. She didn’t come home until after six the next morning. She looked stunned when she saw me sitting in the living room waiting for her. “You… didn’t sleep?” “I, um… I thought you were still angry, so I stayed at my best friend’s place last night.” Sophie continued spinning her lies, but I had no intention of playing along anymore. Without changing my expression, I tossed a pregnancy test onto the table in front of her. “Explain this.”When we got married, Sophie said she wanted to be child-free, so I agreed to get a vasectomy. There was no need to ask who the father of her baby was. “You know?” A week earlier, I had taken out the trash when I left the apartment. If the bottom of the garbage bag hadn’t torn, I would never have happened to find it. At first, I had planned to let it go. I was dying anyway. As long as Sophie and Jason didn’t flaunt their relationship in front of me, there was no need to expose them. But Sophie kept treating me like an idiot for the sake of that young man. I had finally reached my limit. Even then, she tried to argue. “Honey, even after a vasectomy, it’s not absolutely—” “Enough!” I cut her off. “Do you even remember when we last slept together?” Sophie’s expression went blank for a moment before embarrassment spread across her face. She knew there was no way to explain it away, so she finally dropped the act. “Yes, I regret it. Is that not allowed?” “When we got married, our combined monthly income was less than two thousand dollars. How could we afford a child? “I agreed to stay child-free because I understood how much pressure you were under. “Now I have the ability to support a child myself. Why can’t I have one?” So that was how she saw it? But I clearly remembered that back then, when she was only a sales assistant at a small company, I had passed the civil service exam and secured a government position. Sophie had been afraid she would lose her job if she got pregnant. She had also been afraid I might abandon her at any time. To give her the sense of security she wanted, I had gotten the vasectomy. My voice trembled with rage. A dull ache spread through the tumor in my abdomen. “Is that your excuse for finding a young man on the side?” After everything she had said, how could she not understand who I meant? “Yes, I found myself a younger man. He’s young, energetic, and knows how to make me happy. He’s more fun than you. “You, on the other hand, are useless and boring now. You walk around looking miserable all day. The fact that I haven’t replaced you as my husband is already more than generous!” I laughed bitterly. So the companionship I had been so proud of was nothing more than a burden she had wanted to throw away for years. “Let’s get divorced.” Sophie looked at me as if I had told her a joke. “You? You’re asking me for a divorce?” “Listen carefully, Ethan. In my world, there’s no such thing as divorce. There’s only widowhood!” Sophie had been running her own company for several years, and her attitude had grown more domineering. Without even realizing it, she had started treating me the way she treated her employees. I used to let her have her way. That no longer worked on me. I threw the divorce agreement I had prepared onto the table. Sophie sneered and tore it to pieces right in front of me. “You already prepared the papers. You’ve been waiting for a chance to turn against me, haven’t you? “We dated for three years and were married for seven. Anyone would get tired of that! “You only want a divorce because I’m pregnant and you think you can use it against me. “What about you? Can you honestly say you never wavered? “You’re just using this as an excuse to divorce me and take half my money. Dream on!” Smack! I returned the slap she had given me earlier. “Don’t assume everyone is like you.” Love wasn’t a simple matter of physical stimulation. It wasn’t about changing partners once the excitement faded. Love was responsibility. It was staying beside someone. Unfortunately, only the test of time could reveal what love truly was. I had chosen the wrong person. I had lost the gamble. “Whether you believe me or not, I didn’t ask for a single cent in the agreement. I’ll only take my own savings. “I have cancer. I won’t live much longer. What would I need the money for?” Sophie recovered from the slap, her voice filled with mockery. “Cancer? Ethan, you really need to come up with better lies.”