“David, that’s not possible.

He leaves the house every single morning in his scrubs, with his badge.

He stays overnight when there are emergencies.

He was crying on the edge of our bed just last week because he’d had a terrible shift and lost a patient.

He works constantly, David, it’s the whole problem, he works too much” I heard my own voice climbing, insisting, as though if I just listed enough evidence I could make the last six months be what I had believed they were.

David waited until I ran out of words, and then he said, very gently, the sentence that began to take my old life apart.