“Yes,” she said quietly. “A stem cell transplant is my only option left. But finding a matching donor takes time, Arjun. Time I don’t exactly have. And even if they find one, the procedure is incredibly expensive. The insurance only covers a fraction of it because of a clause regarding pre-existing symptoms.”
I stared at her, horrified. She was sitting here, fighting for her life, worrying about money, completely alone.
“Where is your family? Where is your mother?” I asked.
“My mother is sixty-eight and living on a tiny pension back home,” Maya said, her voice trembling. “If I tell her, the shock will kill her before the cancer kills me. I told her I moved to Budapest for a high-paying corporate job and that I’m just too busy to call often. I send her photos from a year ago so she thinks I’m fine.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The woman I loved—and God help me, I realized in that exact moment that I still loved her fiercely—had engineered a massive web of lies just to suffer in absolute isolation.
“I’m here now,” I said fiercely, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. “I don’t care about the divorce papers. I don’t care about the past. I am not leaving you alone in this hallway, Maya. I will find the money. I will talk to the doctors. We will fight this together.”
For a split second, a glimmer of hope appeared in her dull eyes. But it was quickly replaced by a profound, heartbreaking exhaustion.
“Arjun, don’t do this to yourself. You don’t owe me anything anymore.”
“I owe you my life,” I said, my voice breaking. “I threw away five years of our marriage because I was a coward who couldn’t handle grief. Please, Maya. Let me be a man for once in my life. Let me stay.”
Before she could answer, a stern-looking doctor in a white lab coat emerged from a nearby consultation room. He held a thick medical chart in his hands, his face grim. He looked at Maya, then noticed me kneeling beside her.
“Mrs. Kovács?” the doctor called out, using her maiden name. He paused, looking at me. “Are you a relative?”
“I’m her husband,” I stood up immediately, correcting him without a second thought. “What’s happening, Doctor?”
The doctor sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He didn’t bother correcting me about our marital status. He looked down at the chart, then back up at us, his eyes filled with a heavy, professional solemnity.
“I’m glad you’re here, sir. We just got the results of the emergency blood panel we ran this morning, as well as the updated donor registry sweep.”
The Breaking Point
The air in the hallway grew cold. Maya gripped my hand tighter, her fingernails digging into my skin. I could feel her heart hammering through her pulse.
“Doctor, please,” I said, bracing myself. “Tell us.”
