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.

“But do you remember the note I slipped into your lunch bag yesterday morning?”

He looked up, and his voice dissolved into a quiet sob.

“You wrote that I didn’t have to hold up the whole world, and that you wanted your turn to help me.”

“I meant every word of that note, Brian, so let me take my turn now.”

My husband laid his forehead down on our kitchen table and cried without holding anything back, and I kept hold of his hand until the sun came up.

At seven that morning, I called a stubborn legal aid lawyer named Jason Boyd, whom Carmen had suggested a few days before.