A Nurse Mentioned the Woman Visiting My Dying Husband—Then She Came to My Door With a Letter About a Five-Year-Old Boy

I remembered times he turned a conversation into a joke and wondered whether I had mistaken concealment for courage.

Sadie asked where Daddy’s slippers should go.

“Leave them for now,” I said.

She put them beside the bed with their toes pointing neatly toward the room.

That night, I looked at them until the shapes blurred.

At two in the morning, I whispered into the dark.

“Were you cheating on me?”

There was no answer to become angry with.