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.

“Told me what, Paul?

What is it?”

My voice rang out across the hushed waiting area, and an elderly man in the corner looked up from his magazine.

Paul threw a nervous glance back at the nurses’ station, where Rachel was frantically pretending to rearrange a stack of medical charts while her fingers trembled.

“We can’t talk about this out here in the main hallway, Hannah, so please come with me.”

He gently steered me down a quiet carpeted corridor and pushed open a door with an engraved brass plaque next to the handle.