“No,” I said. “Now it’s my turn to watch.”
While he was still recovering, I learned another truth that changed everything. An elderly nurse stopped me in the hallway.
She showed me old records. His first wife’s death hadn’t been natural. She fell from the roof during a sleepwalking episode. Before that, she had survived three similar incidents—each time because he’d been awake and caught her.
“People thought he was strange,” the nurse said. “But the truth is—he was a guard.”
My hands began to tremble.
So he married me…
To save me.
And to punish himself.
When he returned home, he was quieter. More vulnerable. He didn’t sit in the chair anymore. He slept near the door, far from the bed.
“Now I don’t have to watch,” he said. “You’re safe.”
One night he muttered in fever:
“Don’t go… look… smile…”
I took his hand.
“I’m here.”
He opened his eyes. For the first time, he looked at me without fear.
“You must hate me,” he whispered.
“Maybe I would have,” I said. “Not anymore.”
“Your husband recognized it,” the doctor said. “He knew before you did.”
That night, for the first time, there was no fear—only regret.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
He stared out the window.
“Because if I did,” he said, “you would have run.”
“And now?”
He exhaled.
“Now it’s too late for running.”
His health worsened again. One evening he said quietly:
“If I go—”
“Don’t,” I cut in.
He insisted.
“Sell the house. Take your father. Start over.”
“And you?”
He didn’t answer.
That night, when he finally slept, I sat in the chair—the same chair he once used to watch me. The roles reversed. I watched him breathe.
And then I saw it.
He was smiling.
I understood: the danger was no longer me. He had been standing guard for both of us all along.
The next morning he told me:
“I’ve decided.”
“What?”
“I will no longer live in fear.”
He underwent surgery—risky, brutal, hours of waiting.
When the doctor came out, she was smiling.
“He survived.”
I cried—because in that moment I finally understood: this marriage wasn’t a deal. It was two broken people finding each other in the dark.
But the real test still waited.
One night, I had the same dream again: a long corridor, a voice behind me, legs heavy as stone. The only difference was this time I didn’t fall. I stopped. I turned.
And I saw myself.
I screamed and sat up. He woke instantly.
“I saw something,” I whispered.
He nodded.
“I knew. It had to happen today or tomorrow.”
That night, the thing he feared happened. I rose in my sleep and walked toward the stairs, eyes open, not fully conscious.
But this time, he wasn’t sitting in the chair.
He stood in front of me.
“Stop,” he said.
I stopped.
He asked softly, “Are you afraid?”
I nodded.
He took my hand—firm, but gentle.
“I’m afraid too,” he said. “And I’m still here.”
Something broke inside me—not into pieces, but open.
I fell—into his arms, not onto the floor.
After that night, I never sleepwalked again.
Doctors called it the mind’s last clash: fear versus safety.
Safety won.
We sold the big house. My father’s treatment was completed. We moved to a small town where no one knew our names. No chairs. No bells. No guards. Only one bed—and two people.
For the first time, we both slept at the same time.
Years later, when he finally passed away in a quiet sleep, I sat beside him and watched his breathing fade.
He was smiling.
This time, there was no fear.
I knew—the danger was truly over.
The lesson was simple, but expensive:
Sometimes the man who seems the strangest is the one protecting the most.
And sometimes, the only way to stand against fear… is to take someone’s hand and stand there together.
