Part 1: The Scar Under the Cast
After 32 years together, I thought I knew every version of my husband, even the helpless one he became whenever something hurt. But after an accident, Conor stopped letting me help him. The more protective he grew of one simple injury, the more certain I became that something else had happened.
“Don’t touch the cast.”
Conor’s voice came out so sharply that my hand froze inches from his right leg.
He sat on the bathroom floor beside the tub, one crutch under the sink and the other lying across the doorway. The top edge of his cast had cracked in the fall, and the padding had slipped out of place.
“You’re on the floor,” I said. “I’m trying to help you.”
“I can handle it.”
“You just lost a fight with a bathtub.”
“Cynthia.”
Something in the way he said my name stopped me.
It wasn’t irritation. It was fear.
Conor snatched for a towel, but he wasn’t quick enough.
The loose padding had shifted far enough for me to see a long pink scar above the edge of the cast.
It was healing.
And it had nothing to do with the fractured ankle he’d supposedly gotten two weeks earlier.
I stared at him.
“Conor… what the hell is that?”
His hand tightened around the towel.
Suddenly, the last two weeks of odd behavior made sense. Or at least I thought they did.
After 32 years of marriage, you learn certain things about a person.
I knew Conor snored worse on his back.
I knew he claimed he wasn’t hungry right before stealing half my fries. And I knew my husband had absolutely no dignity when he was sick.
A cold meant soup, tea, extra blankets, and hourly updates on his sinuses.
So when his coworker Nathan brought him home one afternoon with his right leg in a cast, I expected six weeks of helplessness.
Nathan had worked with Conor for years. I’d met him often enough to know he was quieter than my husband and twice as patient.
That afternoon, patience was clearly going to be necessary.
Nathan had an arm around Conor’s waist when I opened the door.
“What happened?”
“Wet floor,” Nathan said.
Conor lowered himself onto the couch with a groan.
“Fractured ankle. The doctor said six weeks. This is going to be miserable.”
Six weeks.
I’d deserve a medal by Friday.
I propped his leg on pillows and brought him water.
“Anything else, Your Majesty?”
“Tea would be nice, Cyn.”
I stared at him.
“You offered.”
“I absolutely did not mean it.”
He grinned.
That was my Conor.
I made the tea anyway.
When I returned, the padding near the top of his cast looked folded over. I reached toward it.
Conor pulled his leg away.
“I’ve got it.”
I laughed.
“Since when?”
“I don’t want you bumping it.”
“Conor, you once asked me to check your temperature four times in one evening.”
“It was a bad fever.”
Then he slid his leg even farther from me.
The next morning, I offered to wrap the cast before his shower.
“No. I’ll do it.”
“You plan to balance on one foot while wrapping your own leg?”
“I can manage, Cynthia. Please, stop hovering.”
He carried the plastic upstairs.
A minute later, I heard the bathroom lock click.
Conor never locked that door.
Three days later, I asked when his follow-up appointment was.
“Next week.”
“What day?”
“I wrote it down.”
“Where? I’ll come with you.”
He looked away from the television.
“I’ve got it, Cynthia.”
There it was again.
Not annoyance.
Guarding.
“You’ve become strangely independent since breaking your ankle.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve spent 32 years asking me where we keep the aspirin.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
“It’s in the same cabinet it was in when we moved here.”
He almost smiled, but the smile faded.
Over the next week, the small things got harder to dismiss.
He showered only when I was downstairs.
He kept the injured leg on the far side of the bed.
If I walked in while he was adjusting the cast, his hands went still.
Then Nathan called.
Conor’s phone was on the kitchen counter while he sat in the living room.
I answered.
“Hey, Nathan.”
“Oh. Hey, Cynthia.”
“Want Conor?”
“I was just checking how he’s doing after everything.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“After breaking his ankle, that’s what you mean, right?”
A pause.
“Yeah. That’s what I meant.”
I glanced through the doorway.
Conor was pretending to read.
“He’s fine.”
“Good. Tell him I called.”
When I hung up, Conor looked over.
“Nathan?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“To know how you’re doing after everything.”
His eyes lifted.
“What?”
“His words.”
Conor shrugged.
“He meant the accident at work, Cyn.”
I walked away before he could see that I didn’t believe him.
That evening, I made a decision.
I wasn’t going to check his phone or search his drawers.
After dinner, I was going to ask my husband one question.
What are you hiding from me?
But I never got the chance.
A crash came from upstairs.
Then I found him beside the tub.
And saw the scar.
Conor draped the towel over his leg.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing doesn’t leave a scar like that.”
“It’s handled.”
“What’s handled?”
He glanced at the door.
“Conor.”
“I had something removed.”
My stomach tightened.
“What? What did you have removed?”
“A spot.”
“What kind of spot, Conor?”
He didn’t answer.
I lowered myself beside him.
“Conor, look at me.”
He did.
“Tell me the truth.”
His shoulders sagged.
“Skin cancer.”
