My Wife Woke in a Hospital Bed, Saw the Tattoo I’d Hidden for Four Years, and Instead of Asking Me to Make Them Disappear, She Said the Six Words That Set Me Free: “No Bodies. Ruin Them in the Light.”

At dawn Samantha opened her eyes, and I was standing by her bed with my collar buttoned high, absurdly, as though I could still hide the thing she had already seen.

“I saw your tattoo,” she murmured.

“Last night.” “I know,” I said.

“I should have told you the truth a long time ago.” She studied my face for a while, and I let her, and I did not look away, because she had earned the right to look as long as she needed.

“Are you a dangerous man?” she asked me finally.

It was the question I had spent four years dreading, and when it came I found I knew the answer completely.