So I made a decision. The worst and most loving decision of my life. I decided to let you go — to make you let me go — so you could have the whole, long, healthy life I couldn’t give you.
I met a woman at school. Her name was Carol. And Carol knew, from the start, what I was — I told her everything, the diagnosis, the prognosis, all of it. She married me anyway, with her eyes open, knowing she was probably signing up to be a young widow. She was a good woman, Ruthie. She wasn’t you — nobody was ever you — but she was kind, and she was brave, and she chose me knowing what it would cost.
I married her because I couldn’t marry you. Because marrying you would have destroyed your life, and marrying her only spent mine.”
Chapter 3: The Life He Didn’t Get to Live
“And then,” Jeffrey said, and here his weak voice cracked into something between laughter and grief, “I didn’t die.
The prognosis was wrong. Or the treatment worked, or I was the exception, or God has a sense of humor — I don’t know. But the years they gave me came and went, and I was still here. Thirty came. Forty. Fifty. I kept living, Ruthie. The death that made me let you go never arrived.
