After An Affair, We Lived As Strangers For Eighteen Years—Until One Doctor’s Visit

for his arm tentatively.

He flinched away violently, jerking back as if I’d burned him. “Don’t speak to me. Not one word until he’s out of surgery and stable.”

Three hours later, Jake was stabilized and moved to the ICU. We stood outside the glass partition, watching his chest rise and fall with mechanical assistance, tubes and wires connecting him to continue reading …