My Husband Left Me to Die for His Mistress

They called it a heart attack. Stress-induced cardiac failure, the coroner said. Natural causes.

I stood in the hospital corridor with the paperwork in my hands and thought about how nothing about my father's death was natural. He was sixty-three. He ran five miles every Sunday. He'd carried stage equipment up four flights of stairs three weeks ago without breaking a sweat.

The nurse who'd been with him said he'd arrived by ambulance from his apartment. Alone. Clutching his chest. Gone before they could get him stable.

I asked if he'd said anything. She shook her head. Her eyes were kind.

Cassius stood beside me in the hallway, one hand on my shoulder. The pressure was light. Performative. When I turned to look at him, he was checking his watch.

I saw him do it.

I didn't say a word.

They let me sit with the body for twenty minutes. My father's hand was cold and heavy in mine. His wedding ring — my mother's ring, the one he'd never taken off — caught the fluorescent light. I traced the band with my thumb.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."

For what, I didn't know. For marrying Cassius. For not listening. For being the reason he'd spent the last three years watching me disappear into something he couldn't fix.

I didn't cry. Not in front of Cassius. Not in front of the nurses. I sat there holding my father's hand until they told me it was time to go.

Cassius drove us home in silence. I stared out the window and felt absolutely nothing.

---

Two weeks later, Cassius suggested Vermont.

"You need rest," he said. He was packing a bag on the bed, folding shirts with the precision of a man who'd never had to think about what rest actually meant. "Fresh air. Time away from the city. It'll be good for you."

I stood in the doorway. The prosthetic socket was angry again. Red. Hot. I'd stopped mentioning it.

"Okay," I said.

He looked up. Smiled. It was the first time he'd smiled at me in months.

"Good," he said. "We leave tomorrow."

---

The cabin was small and clean and smelled like pine. There was a fireplace. A view of the mountains through the front window. Snow everywhere, thick and silent.

Cassius made coffee the first morning. Brought me a cup on the porch. Kissed the top of my head.

"See?" he said. "This is what we needed."

I sipped the coffee. It was too hot. I didn't tell him.

That night we sat by the fire. He scrolled through his phone. I stared at the flames and felt the phantom ache flare hot and sharp in the leg that wasn't there.

His phone rang at eleven.

He looked at the screen. His face changed.

"I have to take this," he said, standing. He walked into the bedroom and closed the door.

I heard her voice through the wood. High. Frantic. Sobbing.

When he came out, his face was white.

"Get your coat," he said.

"What?"

"Now, Elise. We need to go."

I stood up too fast. The prosthetic shifted. Pain shot up through the socket. I grabbed the arm of the couch.

"What's happening?"

"Avianna's been in an accident. She's on Route 7. She's hurt."

I stared at him.

"Get in the car," he said.

---

The road was dark. Empty. Snow piled high on both sides. Cassius drove fast, his knuckles white on the wheel. I sat beside him and watched the trees blur past.

"How far?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

Ten minutes later, he pulled onto the shoulder. The car idled. He didn't turn off the engine.

"Wait here," he said.

"What?"

"I'll be back. Just — stay in the car. I need to find her."

He got out. The cold rushed in. He slammed the door.

I watched him walk around to the driver's side. He looked at me through the window. His face was unreadable.

Then he got in and drove away.

I sat there for a long time. Watching the taillights shrink. Disappear around the bend.

The cold crept in through the seams of my coat. My breath fogged the air.

I waited.

Five minutes. Ten. Twenty.

He didn't come back.

I got out of the car.

---

The socket was already failing. I felt it in the first hundred yards. The fit was wrong. The skin underneath was raw. Every step sent a spike of pain up through my hip.

I kept walking.

The road stretched out ahead of me, dark and endless. No headlights. No houses. Just trees and snow and the sound of my own breathing.

I thought about stopping. Sitting down. Waiting for someone to find me.

But I didn't.

I walked.

The prosthetic ground against the inflamed tissue with every step. I felt the skin tear. Felt the warmth of blood inside the socket. The cold turned it to ice.

I walked.

I don't know how long. Hours, maybe. The pain stopped being pain and became something else. A white noise. A hum.

I couldn't feel the leg anymore.

I thought about my father. About the last time I'd seen him, two weeks before he died. He'd hugged me at the door of his apartment and held on a little too long.

"You can always come home, sweetheart," he'd said.

I hadn't understood what he meant.

I understood now.

The trucker found me on the shoulder just after dawn. I was sitting in the snow. I don't remember sitting down.

He loaded me into his cab. The heater was on. It felt like fire.

"Hospital," I whispered.

He drove fast.

I closed my eyes and felt nothing at all.