The machine’s beeps, the smell of medicine, the hurried shoes… everything intensified my fear. He lay unconscious, older and more worn than I had ever seen him. A doctor took me aside. “His condition is critical,” he said. “His heart and mind… What are you to him?”
In that hesitation, I realized that this marriage was already “paper”. I answered firmly: “I am his wife.” He remained unconscious for three days. On the fourth, his fingers moved. He opened his eyes. The first thing he asked, so gently that it broke me, was: “Were you asleep?”
Tears flooded my eyes. “No,” I said. “Now it’s my turn to watch.” While he was still recovering, I learned another truth that changed everything. An older nurse stopped me in the hallway. “I won’t tell you everything,” he said. He showed me old records. The death of his first wife was not natural. She fell from the roof during an episode of sleepwalking.
Before that, she had survived three similar incidents, always because he was awake and caught her. “People thought it was strange,” the nurse said. “But the truth is, he was a guard.” My hands began to tremble. So he married me… To save me. And to punish himself.
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