He had murmured that promise many times since, in those moments late at night, when her silent breathless sobbing had woken him, shuddering between the sheets. When he got up to find she hadn’t made it to work, curled up under a blanket, unable to face the world. At some point, she had believed the words he was never sure if he had really meant.
I really liked this image. There's a depth of emotion here through that imagery.
I see that we all concur with that.