Later, after he slept, Rachel told me she had begun seeing a counselor.

“I thought I would be grateful every minute,” she said.

“Instead I’m angry, frightened and tired.

Sometimes I feel guilty for feeling that way.” I told her I had spent weeks afraid that any moment of happiness meant I had forgotten how close we had come to losing her.

We agreed to stop measuring one another’s recovery against an imaginary timetable.

Our marriage had changed.