He lowered his head.
“At first, the doctor had told us that the liquid form could be mixed with a small amount of a drink, and you knew about it then. But years passed. You stopped remembering that period clearly.”
I could barely speak.
“So why did you keep doing it?”
George was silent for a long time.
Finally, he whispered,
“Because I was afraid.”
Those three words changed everything.
“I was afraid of that night when you collapsed in the kitchen and stopped responding to me. Every time you refused the drink, I saw that night again in my head.”
I was angry.
Very angry.
He should have told me.
He should have spoken to a doctor again instead of continuing an old routine for decades.
But for the first time, I understood what had been hiding underneath his anger.
Not hatred.
Fear.
The following week, we went to a doctor together.
After proper examinations and a review of my old records, we learned that I had not needed that medication for many years.
That evening, for the first time in forty years, George placed two glasses on the table.
But this time, there was only tea inside them.
He handed one to me.
“No more secrets,” he said quietly.
I took the glass.
“No more secrets.”
And only then did I realize that the thing I had spent several terrifying days believing was forty years of betrayal had actually begun with one man’s fear of losing his wife.
What he had done was not the right way to handle that fear.
But that night, for the first time in decades, we sat together at the kitchen table knowing exactly what was in both of our glasses.
