And then… I almost fainted.
In the room, my husband wasn’t hugging any woman. He was on his knees, with candles, incense, and an old photograph in front of him. His eyes were red, as he murmured a woman’s name and cried like a child.
That woman… wasn’t a stranger. It was his wedding photo with his first wife, who had died five years earlier.
He wanted to sleep alone, not because he was cheating on me, but because he needed, in silence, to “return” to those memories, to that first love he had never forgotten.
I sank to the floor, tears in my eyes. The rage faded, leaving only bitter pain mixed with compassion: all this time, it wasn’t that he was betraying me, but rather that I was living with a heart that had never belonged to me.
I sat on the cold ground, my trembling fingers still gripping the edge of the hole. The image of my husband kneeling before the portrait of his deceased wife pierced my soul. I feared another living woman, a betrayal, but it turned out I was competing with a shadow from the past.
I had thought that if my love was sincere and my care constant, one day he would love me again. But now I understood that there are wounds and loves that are impossible to replace. I was only a temporary guest in a house whose heart was forever sealed in the past.
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