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.

Gable, was sitting at our kitchen table helping Emma color pictures.

“Brian called me an hour ago and asked if I could watch Emma because he had an urgent personal errand across town.”

Emma looked up from her sketchbook with a worried frown.

“Daddy hugged me really tight before he went out the door, Mom, and there were tears running down his face.”

A terrible chill gripped my chest as I spotted a folded note sitting under the wooden fruit bowl on the counter.

“Hannah, I’m ending this nightmare today so that you and Emma don’t have to suffer for my failures any longer.