Before I could say anything else, a doctor in blue scrubs stepped out of a nearby doorway and paused when he saw us. “Mrs. Carter?”

Hearing him call her by my last name twisted something sharp in my chest.

Sophie straightened a little. “Yes?”

The doctor glanced at me politely. “I’m Dr. Patel. Are you family?”

The question hollowed me out. Family. Once the answer had been simple. I was her husband. Her emergency contact. The person who knew how she took her coffee, which side of the bed she preferred, what song made her cry every Christmas.

Now I was standing in a hallway with no clear right to be there.