Dean Marbinson

The snow on Dean’s collar was already turning into gray water by the time he dropped his keys on the counter. He did not look at me. He just stood there by the radiator, smelling of damp wool & the cheap coffee from that legal office downtown. He had seen an estate planning attorney that drafted for him a will & a healthcare directive. I was clueless of what was going on. "I have been sleeping with Maya," he said. His voice was flat, devoid of any rehearsed malice, which somehow made it worse. "It has been going on for a year. She is better for me than you are." I did not yell. The silence in the kitchen felt heavy, suffocating. I took the silver band off my finger, placed it next to his car keys & walked out into the freezing night. The divorce papers arrived three weeks later, processed with an efficiency that felt almost insulting. Now, the April sun hits the bricks of the St. Anne hospital courtyard with a blinding, sterile light. I am holding a stack of intake clipboards, my volunteer badge heavy against my chest. Twenty yards away, Dean sits in a wheelchair. His shoulders are sharp angles beneath a faded cardigan. The man who used to complain about the slightest draft is just sitting there, staring at a patch of dead grass, hollowed out & shrinking into himself. I went to Maya first. She didn't look up from her monitor when I walk into Dean's office an hour later. "He never touched me," she said. "He found out about the stage 4 diagnosis in November. The glioblastoma explained the migraines he used to hide from you by locking himself in his study. He had a year at most. He did not want you to watch him rot," she added in tears. She finally stopped typing & looked at me, her eyes tired & entirely empty of sympathy for me. "He forced his parents out too. He wanted to be alone so nobody would have to carry the memory of his decay. You believed the lie because it was easier than looking closer."