Last night, I woke up and heard my husband talking on the phone in the kitchen. “She won’t remember anything anyway, there’s no need to worry.” I froze in the hallway when I realized he was talking about me…

I accidentally overheard my husband speaking softly on the phone to someone in the empty living room: “She won’t remember anything, the doctors said the lapses will only get worse,” and I realized the conversation was about me and my secrets that he should never have touched. In that second, a chill ran through me, for I have no illness, and for the past six months, my husband had been methodically switching my medications and “forgetting” to inform me about important calls, weaving a cocoon of imagined forgetfulness around me. When he turned and saw me in the doorway, his face twisted for a moment, but he quickly put on his usual mask of a caring spouse and whispered something that made my knees shake…

Standing in the doorway, clutching an empty glass in my hand, I looked at the man I had lived with for thirty years. He approached, gently took me by the elbow, and said, “Darling, you forgot again that the doctor told you not to stay up so late. Come, I’ll walk you to bed.” His voice was so sickly sweet that I almost felt nauseous. I obediently went along, playing the role of the “lost” woman he had described to someone on the phone.

It all began six months ago when I suddenly fainted at our summer house. After that, my husband surrounded me with such care that I was initially touched. But soon, strange things started happening. He began claiming that I had forgotten to turn off the stove, although I clearly remembered not going near it. Then he said I lost the keys, which later “turned up” in my own boot. He slowly, drop by drop, implanted the idea that my mind was fading, and trusting him as I did myself, I started to believe it.

Sitting in my room pretending to be asleep, I feverishly thought: why? Why would a healthy, strong man turn his wife into a vegetable? The answer came the next morning when he went to the store, leaving his laptop open. I had never spied on him, but this curiosity was a matter of survival.

In his mail, I found correspondence with some developer. It turned out our old house, which I inherited from my grandmother and which my husband always hated for being “old junk,” was on a plot for which they offered a large amount of money. But officially, the house belonged to me alone, and I had always categorically refused to sell it—it was my memory, my ancestral nest. For years, he persuaded me, got angry, and then, apparently, found another way.

He was preparing documents declaring my incompetency. He needed official confirmation that I was unaware of my actions, so he could become my guardian and dispose of the property as he saw fit. The pills he gave me “for the vessels” actually caused drowsiness and slight confusion in thoughts. He didn’t just want money; he was methodically erasing my personality to take what I didn’t want to give willingly.

I became scared. In my own home, I was trapped by a person who knew my every step. I understood why he limited my meetings with friends, why he stopped inviting our daughter over, always making excuses that I “wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to see anyone.” He was building a wall between me and the world, and that wall had almost closed over my head.

Today at lunch, he again handed me a glass of water and that very capsule. I looked into his eyes—clear, calm, loving—and saw the cold calculation of a predator. I took the pill, pretended to swallow it, and when he turned away, I hid it under my tongue. Now I know his plan, but he doesn’t know that I heard everything.

I started keeping a diary, hiding it in an old thread box. I write down every day, every word he says, to stay connected to reality. But the scariest part is that I don’t know who to trust now. If he could lie to me so masterfully for thirty years, what else is he capable of? Yesterday I saw him trying on my rings and placing them in a small safe, the code to which I never knew. He had already begun dividing my life while I was still in it.

Tomorrow, some “old friend” of ours is supposed to come over, who is actually a notary. I heard my husband preparing him on the phone, convincing him that I am “in very poor condition.” I sit by the window, looking at our garden, knowing that tomorrow my fate will be decided.

What should a woman do who has discovered that her closest person is also her executioner: expose him right then and there in front of a witness, or keep pretending to be “mad” to prepare an escape plan and save not only the house but also the remnants of her soul?

***

Last night I woke up feeling thirsty, and on my way to the kitchen I heard my husband talking to someone on the phone: “She won’t remember anything anyway, there’s nothing to worry about.” I froze in the hallway when I realized he was talking about me…
When he turned around and saw me standing in the doorway, his face twisted for a brief second, but he immediately put on his usual mask of a caring husband and said something that made my knees tremble…
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