I went back to bed with my ex-wife during a business trip, and in the early morning, a red stain on the sheet took my breath away. A month later, a call from a hospital in Cancun made me understand that that night had not been a mistake… but the beginning of something much darker.

I laughed while crying.

Because she was right.

I was too late to realize that she was suffering.

I was too late to see that she was leaving.

Too late to realize that you can still love someone even after a divorce.

But this time, I wasn’t late.

This time, I was there.

And for the next three weeks, I never left her side.

I slept in an armchair.

I held her hand.

I told him stupid stories.

I told him about the dog we never adopted.

From the trip to Puebla.

Of everything we had lost.

And one morning, just before sunrise, as the sky turned blue behind the hospital windows, Elena placed her hand against my cheek.

— Thank you… for coming back.

Then she left.

And since that day, every time I think about that red stain on the sheet, I no longer think about the shock.

I’m thinking about the fact that she already knew she was disappearing.

And that in the midst of this fear, in the midst of this approaching end, she had wanted to spend one last night remembering what it felt like to be loved.