CHASING HIS EX-WIFE: My ex-husband wants me-too late

"You only have five months to live, Mrs. Moretti."

The words landed softly, carefully spoken with the kind of gentleness reserved for delivering devastation, but they shattered the room all the same because there was no cushion strong enough to soften a truth like that.

Jayda sat perfectly still on the edge of the hospital bed with her hands folded neatly in her lap, her spine straight as though posture alone could hold her together while the white walls pressed in too close, and the air turned too thin to breathe.

For a moment she wondered if she had misheard him or if perhaps this was someone else's nightmare bleeding into her reality because five months could not possibly be meant for her, could not possibly be the remainder of a life she had barely begun to live.

Across from her the doctor continued speaking—lungs, lymph nodes, aggressive progression, all the symptoms of cancer—but his voice blurred into meaningless sound that washed over her without penetration because her mind had locked onto a single impossible thought that circled endlessly.

Five months.

Beside her Margaret made a sound that broke the terrible silence that followed the Doctor's words.

A sob—raw, loud, and uncontrolled, tore from the elderly housekeeper's throat as she pressed both hands to her chest. "No… no, no, no," Margaret cried out with tears already streaming down her weathered face, catching in the lines that years of worry had carved there. "This cannot be true because God would not be this cruel, not to her, not to Madam who has never hurt a soul."

Jayda couldn't move or speak because Margaret's grief filled the room in all the ways Jayda's could not yet find a way out since shock had wrapped itself tight around her heart, and held her captive in a strange stillness.

She felt oddly separate from her body as though she were watching this scene unfold through thick glass that muffled sound and emotion, and left her floating somewhere outside herself.

The doctor stopped speaking and shifted uncomfortably in his chair because he was used to pain but never immune to it, and the weight of what he had just said settled visibly on his shoulders.

"Mrs. Moretti?" he asked gently, carefully as though afraid she might shatter if he spoke too loudly.

Jayda swallowed hard against the tightness in her throat, felt how dry her mouth had become. When she finally spoke her voice came out quiet, almost unbearably polite as though she were asking about the weather instead of the end of her life.

"Is there… a cure?"

The question hovered between them fragile, trembling with a hope she could barely afford to carry yet could not help but cling to desperately.

The doctor hesitated. That pause, that single terrible pause, told her everything before he even opened his mouth.

"I'm sorry," he said. The apology felt hollow because what could sorry possibly mean in the face of this. "At this stage there is no cure. We can manage symptoms, slow the progression in some cases, but… the disease has advanced significantly beyond what treatment can reverse."

Five months. The thought kept circling in her head on a loop.

Margaret cried harder at this, covered her mouth as though she could hold the sound in, keep the grief from spilling out. "She's only twenty-eight," she sobbed with her voice breaking on every word. "She's so young and kind. She hasn't even had the chance to—"

Jayda felt the first tear slide down her cheek.

Then another.

They fell silently one after the other, tracing slow paths over her skin that felt strangely numb and disconnected from the rest of her. She did not wipe them away at first, she just simply let them fall while her gaze remained fixed forward, her mind replaying the doctor's words on a loop that would not stop at all.

Advanced. Aggressive. Five months.

She thought of the exhaustion she had ignored for weeks, the dizziness she had brushed off as nothing, and the nights she had struggled to breathe while telling herself it was only stress or anxiety or the crushing weight of her marriage that was quietly falling apart.

Margaret had begged her to rest, to see a doctor and to stop pushing herself so hard but Jayda had never listened because she had convinced herself she was fine.

She had been wrong.

Jayda stood abruptly. The movement was sharp and sudden enough to startle both Margaret and the doctor.

Margaret gasped and rushed forward to steady her with both hands reaching out as though Jayda might collapse at any moment. "Madam, please—"

"I'm fine," Jayda said even as the room swayed slightly around her and the floor seemed less solid than it had been moments before. She lifted her hand slowly and wiped the tears from her face with a slowness that felt almost mechanical because control was all she had left. "Stop crying, Margaret."

Margaret stared at her in complete disbelief with her eyes wide and red-rimmed. "How can you say that when you—"

"We're going home," Jayda said. Her tone was calm and final in a way that left no room for argument. "I still have things to do."

The doctor frowned deeply and leaned forward as though proximity might make her listen. "Mrs. Moretti, you should rest and allow yourself time to—"

"I will," she said, cutting him off softly but firmly because she could not afford to fall apart here in this sterile room that smelled of antiseptic. "At home."

She turned to look at him then. Her eyes were steady despite the storm raging inside her heart. "Please don't tell my husband."

The request surprised him, that his eyebrows lifted slightly. "Mr. Moretti should know about your condition and have the opportunity to—"

"I will tell him myself," Jayda said. Her voice did not waver even though her hands trembled where she clasped them together. "When I'm ready."

Margaret's sobbing softened into shocked silence. "Madam…"

Jayda offered her a faint smile that did not quite reach her eyes. "It's our fourth anniversary tonight. I won't let this be how he finds out because he deserves better than that."

The doctor hesitated and glanced between the two women before nodding slowly. "Very well but if your condition worsens in any way you must—"

"I understand."

She didn't, not really because understanding required her accepting and she was not ready to accept that her life had just been reduced to a countdown. But she needed this desperately—one night, one moment where this diagnosis did not get to decide everything.

The drive home was quiet in the way that grief makes everything quiet and bleak.

Jayda sat in the back seat with her hands folded carefully over her stomach and stared out the window as the city blurred past in streaks of light. Margaret sat beside her twisting her hands together anxiously while tears slipped down her lined cheeks in silence.

"Why is it always the kindest people?" Margaret whispered and her voice broke on the question. "Why is the universe so cruel to those who only give and never take?"

Jayda didn't answer because she couldn't and because there was no answer that would make sense of senseless things.

She reached for Margaret's hand and held it gently. "Promise me," she said quietly and carefully, as if someone might hear them. "Don't tell Antonio about today or about the hospital or any of it."

Margaret hesitated and her grip tightened as though she wanted to argue but finally she nodded. "I promise."

They pulled into the Moretti estate just as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold.

The house glowed warmly from within, filled with soft lights, carefully arranged flowers that Jayda had spent hours preparing earlier that week. She stepped inside, took a deep breath that hurt more than it should have and told herself this was how she wanted it, beautiful, hopeful and alive.

She moved slowly through the rooms adjusting candles, smoothing tablecloths and ignoring the tremor in her hands that seemed to grow worse with every passing minute.

Margaret hovered nearby fussing, urging her to sit, to rest and to please stop pushing herself.

"I'm fine," Jayda insisted even though they both knew it was a lie. "Please just let me finish."

This anniversary mattered more than anything because Antonio had been distant for months... cold, distracted, buried in his work, buried in silence and Jayda believed foolishly perhaps that tonight could be the beginning of something better between them.

At exactly nine o'clock the front door opened and Antonio Moretti stepped inside.

With Lisa Knight following close behind him.

Jayda straightened up and her heart pounded so hard she thought it might break through her ribs. "Antonio—" she began to say.

Antonio stopped short when he saw the decorations, the candles, the flowers and for a split second something like guilt flickered across his face.

Then it was gone too fast for Jayda to notice.

He didn't answer her, didn't look at her but instead walked past her without a word and headed straight for his home office with Lisa following him with her heels clicking softly against the marble floor in a rhythm that felt deliberate and mocking.

Jayda stood frozen in the living room while her hope drained away with every second that passed which left her hollow.

Ten minutes later Lisa emerged from the office. "Antonio wants to see you," she said smoothly. And there was something cold in her smile that unsettled Jayda.

She nodded silently and walked past her. And just as she did, she caught the faint curve of Lisa's lips—something close to mockery or triumph or both.

Antonio stood by the window with his back to her, and a glass of whiskey in his hand that caught the light.

She tried to speak but nothing came out because her throat had closed around the words in her mouth.

He turned slowly to look at her, his face unreadable. "Read the documents on my desk," he said flatly, without any emotion. "And sign them."

Her heart stuttered violently as she reached for the brown manila folder with trembling fingers.

The moment she saw the bold heading printed across the top of the documents, the world seemed to tilt sideways.

DIVORCE AGREEMENT.

The papers slipped from her hands and scattered across the floor.

"What… is this?" she whispered.

Antonio met her gaze, hiss expression was calm, final and so cold, that it looks as if she was staring at a different person entirely.

"Divorce papers."

The candles flickered behind her, burned low, as it cast dancing shadows on the walls.

And just like that the night and her life all fell apart.