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I walked into the hospital room and saw Richard for the first time in months.

In that short window he had gone from a healthy middle-aged man to an old one. His hair had gone fully white. He had shrunk. The aggressive energy he'd carried his whole life was gone.

I, on the other hand, had not been running anyone's household.

The grinding fatigue I'd carried for forty years had lifted. I was wearing clothes I'd chosen for myself. You could see my age, sure — but my posture, my eyes, my presence had all come back.

Richard hadn't imagined me thriving. He stared at me as if he didn't recognize the person in front of him. Then he let out a small, wet smile.

"Josephine. You came."

I had expected some kind of satisfaction, standing there. I didn't feel it. I just felt tired — for forty wasted years of myself on a man like this.

He reached for my hand.

"Josephine. I know. I know I was wrong. These last forty years — I shouldn't have treated you that way."

"I see it now. Only now."

"Since you left, there's been this hollow in my chest. The house is gone. Forty years. Nothing to show for it."

"If I could go back — if I'd never gotten involved with Vivienne — if I'd held the line —"

"If I hadn't fought with you three months ago and signed those papers —"

"If I'd just let you sit at that wedding and hear Caroline call you Mom —"

"None of this would have happened. We'd still be together."

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

He broke down sobbing in front of me. In forty years of marriage he had never once been vulnerable with me. He'd never cried where I could see him. He'd never shown me the soft underside of himself.

I knew what he wanted.

I shook my head.

"Richard. Given the same circumstances, you'd do it again."

"You looked down on me from the start. I was never your first choice. I was the closest acceptable substitute."

"Give you the reset button and you'd still drift to Vivienne — because that's the kind of man you are. You don't hold lines. You're selfish. You're petty. And you're cruel."

"If you'd ever considered how I felt, you wouldn't have put someone else's embryo inside my body without telling me."

"You made a fool of me for four decades."

"You regret this now not because you see me clearly, but because living with Vivienne has stopped being fun. The mistress became your wife and you started noticing she was an ordinary woman. And — more importantly — she doesn't wait on you the way I did."

"You're greedy. You're never satisfied."

He cried harder.

I turned to leave. He reached after me and almost fell out of the bed.

I paused at the door.

"Josephine. Josephine. I know I was wrong. Forty years. Forty years of marriage. Can you really just walk away from that?"

"Most of our lives, Josephine. Can't you forgive me? Can't we grow old together?"

I smiled — thinly, coldly.

"Richard. Out of the two of us in that marriage, only one was ever happy. And it wasn't me."

"I spent forty years shrinking to fit you. This marriage was built on my body. Brick by brick."

"I'm done. I've tasted being free. No one who has tasted that walks back into the cage willingly."

I left without looking back.

Three months later, after my stomach had stabilized enough, I went in for the partial gastrectomy.

Early stage. Treatable.

By the time I was discharged I'd already heard — Richard had passed. His heart.

He was old. It had been too much for him. That's the explanation that makes sense.

Every piece of the whole absurd story ended with Richard.

Ethan rebuilt his life in Philadelphia, poorly. He tried a few times to come find me. I wouldn't see him.

As for Vivienne — her final years were as hollow as she deserved. Without Richard's money and with her own savings long gone, she was reduced to walking between Brooklyn apartment buildings collecting deposit bottles for the five-cent refund.

As for me.

I healed. Then I picked up a suitcase and kept traveling.

I'm sixty.

I have plenty of time for everything I actually want to do.

I'm leaving now. I'm not too late.