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.

Walsh had abruptly walked out of the room halfway through the repair, leaving the child bleeding uncontrollably on the table.

“I broke every speed limit on the way there, and by the time I scrubbed in, a major artery had been torn by shaky surgical clamps.”

Brian looked down at his trembling fingers on the table.

“I operated for close to three hours without a break, trying every technique I’d ever learned, but he’d lost too much blood.”

“How did Walsh pin the blame on you?”

“By the next morning, the electronic surgical log had been altered to say I was the primary attending from the very first cut.”