Chapter 7 — The Secret

I will not describe what I saw when she opened her blouse, except to say that it was the mark left by a surgeon, and that it told me, before she said a single word, that my wife had been fighting a battle far more dangerous than any I had fought overseas.

“I have stage three cancer, Austin,” she whispered, and her voice broke on my name.

“The doctors found the tumor almost five months ago.”

Five months.

For five months, while I had been on the other side of the world believing my family was safe and cherished, my wife had been carrying a death sentence, alone, in a storage room, surrounded by people who called her a liar.