I showed up at the hospital to surprise my husband during his shift. But the second one of his coworkers saw me, all the color left his face. Then his eyes filled with tears. “He hasn’t said a word to you, has he?” Ben and I had been married eleven years, and for every one of those years, I had shared him with the hospital. He was a remarkably gifted surgeon.

I could clearly picture myself standing by our oven holding a hot serving dish, checking the dark driveway every five minutes while Brian texted me about a multi-car crash that never existed.

There had never been any pileup on the highway.

“Where has he been spending his days, Paul?

Where was he going every single night he walked out of our house?”

“I honestly don’t know, Hannah, because he emptied his locker in the middle of February and begged me never to call your house.”

Paul brushed a tear off his cheek with the back of his hand.

“He made me swear on our friendship, saying he’d fix the whole nightmare before you ever had to worry about it.”