He Hated His Wife. Hated Her… They Spent 15 Years Together—Every Morning He Saw Her Face, But Only in the Last Year Did Her Habits Begin to Grate on Him, Especially the Way She Stretched Out Her Arms in Bed and Sleepily Said, “Good Morning, Sunshine! It’s Going to Be a Wonderful Day.” At First He’d Loved Her Body, Her Freedom, Her Morning Rituals—Now Even Her Nakedness Filled Him with Anger. She Knew of His Three-Year Affair, But Time Had Healed Her Wounded Pride and Left Only a Sad Sense of Uselessness. Secretly, She Struggled with a Terminal Illness, Finding Solace in a Quiet Village Library. When He Finally Decided to Leave Her for His Lover, He Discovered a Hidden Folder with Her Medical Records—The Diagnosis Gave Her 6–18 Months to Live, and Six Months Had Already Passed. At a Restaurant Where They Once Celebrated Their Anniversary, She Waited for Him in the Autumn Sunshine, Tears Flowing as She Realized Her Life Was Slipping Away Unnoticed. In the End, He Cared for Her Every Moment Until She Passed, Realizing Too Late the Depth of His Loss; Under Her Pillow He Found Her New Year’s Wish: “To Be Happy with Him Until the End of My Days.” That Same Year, He’d Wished for Freedom—And in the End, Each Received Exactly What They’d Requested…

He despised his wife. Truly, despised her

They had shared their lives for fifteen years. For every one of those years, he saw her face each morning, but it was only in the last year that her habits began to gnaw at him in the strangest ways. One in particular: every morning, she would stretch out her arms and, still tucked under the covers, say, Good morning, sunshine! Today will be a splendid day. It was such an ordinary phrase, yet her bony arms and sleepy face filled him with revulsion.

She would rise, walk over to the window, and gaze out into the distance for a few moments. Then she would slip off her nightdress and head to the washroom. Earlier in their marriage, he admired her body, her sense of freedom, which bordered on the wicked. And though her figure remained graceful to this day, the sight of her bare now only made him angry. Once, the urge to shove her and hurry her along in her waking ritual flashed through him, but he summoned all his self-control and only managed to bark, rather harshly:

Hurry up, for heavens sake! Ive had enough of this.

She was in no rush to live. She already knew about his affairknew the very woman hed been seeing for nearly three years now. Time had dulled the wound to her pride, leaving only a dull ache of unneededness. She forgave her husbands coldness, his barbed remarks, his longing to feel young again. Yet she would not let him disrupt the gentle current of her own days, choosing instead to savour every minute with understanding.

She began to live like this after she learned of her illness. Month by month, the disease was claiming her, marching closer to its victory. Her sharpest impulse at the beginning was to tell everyone, to divide up the burden of the truth and hand out the pieces to her loved ones. But after the most harrowing first day, spent alone with the realisation of her swift approaching end, she decided to tell no one. With each passing day, as life slipped further through her fingers, she found herself growing wise, able to watch life go by with calm acceptance.

She found solace in the village library, a journey of nearly an hour and a half by foot. Each day, she would slip between the shelves in a narrow aisle marked long ago by an old librarian: Mysteries of Life and Death. She would always find a book there that seemed to promise all the answers.

He, meanwhile, went to his lovers home. Here, everything was warm and bright, suffused with life and promise. They had carried on together for three years, and he was consumed by his feelings for herso much so that it bordered on madness. Jealousy tormented him; he degraded her and debased himself, unable to imagine life without her youth and warmth.

That day, the matter came clear in his mind: he would seek a divorce. Why torment the three of them any longer? He didnt love his wifehe couldnt even bear to face her. Here, in this other life, he could start again; be happy. He tried to remember any fondness he had once felt for his wife, but nothing came. It seemed to him as though she had irritated him from the very first day they met. Pulling his wallet from his coat, he found a battered photograph of her and, as a sign of his resolve, ripped it to shreds.

They arranged to meet for a meal at the inn where they had marked their fifteenth wedding anniversary only six months earlier. She arrived first. He, before heading there, went home to hunt for the papers needed to file for divorce. Driven by nerves, he rooted through drawers, scattering their contents across the bedroom floor.

In one was a dark blue folder, sealed, which hed never seen. He knelt, tore away the tape, expecting anythingperhaps a damning photograph. Instead, there was a clutch of medical reports and forms, all stamped by familiar hospitals and clinics. Every sheet bore her name and initials.

A sickening rush of understanding seized him. Ill. He typed her diagnosis into his computer, and the dreadful line appeared: Prognosis: 6-18 months. Checking the dates, he saw that half a year had already gone by. Afterwards, his memory was patchy; only those words echoed in his mind: 6-18 months.

She waited forty minutes for him at the table. When her calls went unanswered, she paid the bill in pounds and stepped outside. The autumn was glorious that day: sunlight soothed rather than scorched. How lovely is this world, how very kind the earth is, with its sunshine and woodlands, she thought.

For the first time since learning of her illness, she was overcome by pity for herself. She had found the strength to keep her secrether dreadful secretfrom her husband, her parents, her friends. She had tried to spare their hearts, even at the cost of her own ruined days. Soon, all she would leave behind would be memories.

Walking alone down the lane, she noticed the sparkle in peoples eyesthe hope that comes from believing in tomorrows, in winter followed by certain spring. She knew she would never enjoy that hope again. Bitterness welled up within her and poured forth in tears she could not hold back.

He, meanwhile, wore a path into the floor. For the first time, lifes brevity struck him with physical force. He remembered meeting her all those years ago, young and hopeful. How he had loved her then. Suddenly, the last fifteen years seemed to vanish; once again everything was possible: joy, youth, a whole life together

In her last weeks, he cared for her every minute, never leaving her side, tasting a happiness he thought hed lost forever. The terror of losing her consumed him, and he would have bartered his own life to save hers. If someone had reminded him that only a month ago, he had hated her and longed for a divorce, he would have replied, That was never me.

He saw her struggle to let go, heard her weeping at night when she thought him asleep. He understood nowthere is no greater suffering than knowing the hour and the date of your own death. He saw her fight for life, clinging to the faintest hope.

She died two months later. He covered the path from their home to the churchyard with flowers. He wept like a child as the casket was lowered, ageing by a thousand years in a moment.

Back at the house, beneath her pillow, he discovered a slip of papera wish she had written the previous Christmas: To be happy with Him until my final day. They say wishes made at Christmastime will come true. Perhaps so, for that same year, he had written: To be free.

And so, each received that which, it seems, they had wished for.