A HUSBAND'S DIARY.

PART 1

A HUSBAND'S DIARY

Friday night, before midnight.

The waiting room was colder than I expected. The sterile white walls seemed to close in on me as I sat there, my fingers twitching nervously. The smell of antiseptic lingered in the air, cutting through the tension like a knife. I kept staring at my shirt—Stacey’s blood smeared across it. It was still warm when I got here. Now it was dry, cracked.

I buried myself in the farthest corner of the waiting room, hunched over, fingers gripping my hair, as if pulling on it would wake me from this nightmare. Every tick of the clock echoed in the silence, mocking me. She had to make it. She had to.

"SHE'S MY WIFE!"* That was all I could manage to yell as they wheeled her away, blood pooling beneath her.

They didn’t let me follow. Of course, they wouldn’t. But I hated that feeling—helplessness. I hated it with every fiber of my being.

Now all I could do was wait.

Hours passed, or maybe it was just minutes. Time had lost all meaning. Pacing back and forth didn’t help. Sitting felt unbearable. So I did both—up, down, back and forth. Like a man possessed. I must have looked ridiculous, like someone in an aerobics class with no rhythm, but I couldn’t stop. I was suffocating.

My phone buzzed. I lunged for it. A message. But not from the hospital. It was from *her*. The message she had sent me earlier, the one I didn’t fully understand at the time.

"Stephen... help. Please. I think someone’s—"
That’s where it had cut off. That was the last thing she had said to me before everything went black.

I should have called her back immediately. Why didn’t I? Why did I just assume it was nothing?

The guilt settled in again, heavier this time. My stomach twisted, a wave of nausea threatening to spill out. I looked at the clock—2:47 a.m. She had been in surgery for hours. Still no word.

Suddenly, there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned, expecting a doctor or nurse, but instead, it was my mother-in-law, Agnes. She stood there in her nightdress, with a thick coat thrown over it, her hair disheveled, her face pale.

"My boy" her voice was fragile, like glass ready to shatter, "how is she? Have they told you anything yet?"

I swallowed hard, the words feeling stuck in my throat. 
"She’s still in surgery," I whispered, trying to keep my voice steady, but failing.

She collapsed into the seat next to me, gripping my hand. Her fingers were cold, trembling. We sat in silence for a moment, the weight of it all pressing down on us.

"She’ll be okay," she murmured, more to herself than to me. *"God is watching over her. We’ll get through this. We have to."

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to hold onto that hope. But all I could do was nod, my head filled with doubts, guilt, and fear.

Then came Isaac. He marched in, arms folded tightly across his chest. His face was hard, even harder than usual, like a man who had seen too much. Being a former police commissioner, that wasn’t surprising. But tonight, something else was etched on his face—something raw and personal.

He didn’t say a word to me at first. He stood there, his eyes fixed on the door to the surgery room, his jaw clenched. After what felt like an eternity, he turned toward me.

"What happened?" His voice was gruff, accusatory.

I hesitated. I could never talk straight with Isaac. He had that way of looking at you, like you were already guilty, even if you weren’t. I felt small under his gaze, just as I always did.