Mark grew weaker much faster than we expected.
By my eighth month, I was helping him button his shirts and pretending not to notice when he had to stop halfway to the bathroom just to catch his breath.
A few weeks before he d*ed, Mark began asking to speak to his doctor alone.
I never understood why.
Whenever I asked what they discussed, he would only squeeze my hand and say,
“There’s something I need to arrange.
Please trust me.”
It was unlike him to keep anything from me, especially then.
But he was strangely firm about it.
So I let him do it.
He passed in the hospital with my hand wrapped around his.
Afterward, I signed the final donation papers with tears dripping onto the page.
I remembered that Mark wanted this.
I had to honor his final wish, even though doing so caused me unbearable pain.
As I was leaving the hospital, his doctor hurried after me, his face pale.
He was holding something behind his back so I couldn’t see it.
“Wait!
Please, wait!”
Something in his voice made me stop.
“Mark gave me this three weeks ago,” he said.
“He was very specific.
You weren’t supposed to see it while he was alive.”
The doctor held out a small envelope.
My name was written on it in Mark’s handwriting.
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold it.“He made me promise,” the doctor said quietly.
“He was very specific about the timing.”
I tore it open right there in the hallway.
Inside was a single folded letter — and underneath it, a photograph I had never seen before.
