After my husband died, a nurse let slip that a woman had been visiting him for weeks before the end. A few days later she came to my door and said, "So you don't know what he left you, do you?"

I thanked her and walked away with the holdall, but her words followed me home. For eleven days, I kept wondering who that woman was and why Wilder had never mentioned her. Then came the funeral. I barely remember it—only Clemmie holding my hand and strangers telling me how strong I was while I felt completely hollow inside. Eleven days after Wilder died, someone knocked on my door. It was her. She stood there holding an envelope, tears already filling her eyes. “He asked me to give you this after,” she whispered. “Not before.” Her name was Maeve Dunnage. Then she looked at me and said, “So you don’t know what he left you, do you?”

Maeve was fifty-eight. She was Wilder’s mother. He had been placed in care at four, and Dunnage had been his surname before he was taken away. She had spent eleven years searching for him and finally found him four weeks after his diagnosis. Wilder never told me because he was unsure whether she was genuine. Later, he was terrified that telling me about her would force him to tell me something else. He had stopped treatment in February after doctors explained that it might only give him four to six more weeks while taking everything we had left.

Then I learned the part that broke me. He had tried to tell me four times. But every time, I shut the conversation down because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. I had sold my mother’s ring and kept saying we had to fight. So Wilder quietly moved the money we had left into an account for our unborn child. Maeve drove him to the hospital twice a week and waited with him in parking lots, pretending he still had appointments. She wasn’t another woman. She was the person who sat beside my husband when he was too afraid to bring his truth home.

Maeve comes twice a week now. She does Clemmie’s hair, and my little girl calls her Grandma Maeve. The money remains untouched for the baby, and Maeve’s only photograph of Wilder as a child sits on my fridge. I still have that grey cardigan. Sometimes I hold it and wonder how many times my husband sat in that hospital car park wishing he could tell me everything. If someone you love is sick, leave them a door. Tell them early, “If you ever want to stop, tell me. I won’t fall apart.” I wish I had given Wilder that door. Because sometimes loving someone isn’t about fighting harder. Sometimes it’s about being the one place where they can finally tell you the truth.