Dinner that first night was strained. Usually when classes were in session and Lee didn’t have hospital duty, one of us picked up dinner on the way home. That was usually Lee, since the clinic didn’t close until six. I set the table and once he came home, it was only a matter of unwrapping subs or emptying take-out containers onto our plates, or opening the pizza box. Still, we made a point of sitting down together, me on my side of the table and Lee on his, and over the meal we would talk. About my students, his patients, movies we wanted to see, what might be on the television that night.
I felt as though the moment I left the house in the morning, something inside of me to wound tighter and tighter, like yarn wrapped around itself into a ball. This was my protection from the world, th
