Three days later, a courier delivered an envelope to my door.
Inside was a handwritten letter from Troy.
I knew his handwriting instantly.
My hands trembled before I even read the first line.
In that letter, Troy finally told me everything he had refused to say while he was alive.
The hotel stays had not been for another woman. They were for medical treatments out of town.
The missing money had gone toward consultations, procedures, and attempts to manage an illness he had hidden from nearly everyone.
He wrote that he feared becoming someone I would have to care for instead of love. He feared pity. He feared weakness. He feared watching me rearrange my life around his decline.
So he chose silence.
And silence destroyed us.