Before my surgery, my husband texted: “I want a divorce. I don’t need a sick wife.” The patient in the next bed comforted me. “If I survive this, we should get married,” I said. He nodded. A nurse gasped: “Any idea who you just asked?” – usnews

It was a bitter joke, a defense mechanism meant to elicit a polite smile or a “just focus on getting well.”

Mark stopped. He looked at me for a long, unblinking moment. He didn’t smile. He didn’t joke.

“Okay,” he said.

“Seriously?” I stammered.

“Okay,” he repeated, a simple, solemn vow.

Cliffhanger: Before I could ask if he was insane, the gurney began to roll. The double doors of the surgical wing swallowed me, and the last thing I saw was Mark Grant nodding to me as if we had just signed a contract in blood.

Chapter 5: The Smell of Chicken Broth

The darkness came like the snow—soft, muffled, and absolute.

I woke to a dull, deep ache in my abdomen, the sensation of my own body being unfamiliar to me. I opened my eyes to see the river-shaped crack in the ceiling. I was alive. The simple immensity of that thought made me want to weep. Inhale. Exhale. It was a good pain. The pain of the living.