I slipped away and opened a text from my mother. Hope it was beautiful.

Send pictures.

Tate says Sela is resting. I read it until the screen blurred, and I did not answer.

I powered the phone down and went back to my husband.

But even as I danced, a colder thought was taking root: Tate’s ER text had been perfectly punctuated, without a single one of the frantic typos he made whenever he was actually panicking.

Something was wrong.