Daniel came to the hospital that afternoon. He looked at the bandage and actually asked, “You really got one?” as if there were still a chance the whole thing had been theater. When I reminded him that he had testified there was nothing seriously wrong with me, he said he had only believed what the earlier tests showed. Then I asked him about the doctor who recommended cardiac monitoring in May.
For one second, his eyes shifted away from mine. He said he did not remember the conversation, but when I repeated the doctor’s warning about an intermittent rhythm problem, Daniel replied, “Doctors write things like that to protect themselves.” The answer came too fast. He might not have known my final diagnosis, but he clearly remembered that someone had warned us there could be a physical problem.
That was the moment my anger changed. I had spent months wondering whether Daniel truly believed I was imagining everything or whether he had simply found that explanation convenient. Now I knew he had heard at least one doctor say more testing was needed, yet he still sat in court while his attorney described my symptoms as proof of instability. I stopped trying to make him admit what he had done and started preparing to prove what had happened.
