“Mabel went to her church. She was eighty-seven years old. There was nothing you could do.”

He was saying it to make me feel better, but the words stung anyway.

Nothing you could do.

I turned my face into Nate’s neck, letting the reassuring thump of his pulse flutter against my cheek. I didn’t want him to see the tears scratching behind my eyelids, the feeling that I’d failed glowing in their sheen. I didn’t cry, as a rule. I’d learned long ago that nothing good came from crying. Nothing but waves of helplessness, which I hated, and a throbbing headache, which I also hated.

Nate said I felt too much as a doctor. That I was too compassionate and needed better boundaries. But I didn’t agree. My compassion for my patients was like a superpower. It made me a better doctor, a better human. Shouldn’t we all care a little more?

I didn’t want to talk about Mabel, so I stood, moving toward the kitchen to start the never-ending chores of a full-time working mother.

“You took Charlie for a walk, right?”

Charlie heard the word walk and stood, his tail wagging. Charlie had turned up on our front porch one day out of the blue. We hadn’t planned to keep him. We both had demanding jobs and a small child; we didn’t have time for a dog. But by the time we’d realized no one was responding to our LOST DOG posters around town, it was too late. He was family.

“Yep.”

“Did you do laundry? Josh needs a clean school uniform tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

“Did you empty—”

“The garbage? Yep.”

“Sorry. You know me.”

Nate grinned, his eyes bright, his smile teasing. “You mean an overly responsible, incredibly anal control freak?”

I laughed. He was right: I got shit done. “No, a loving mother and a dependable, well-respected doctor.”

I slipped a sweater on and searched for my fuzzy slippers under the table. “Have you seen my slippers?”

“I dunno. Bedroom?”

I found them in the bathroom, slipped them on, and returned to the living room. “You were wearing my slippers again, weren’t you,” I teased.

“I prefer your heels, dahling.” Nate struck a pose, one hand behind his head, before grabbing my hand and pulling me back down onto the couch. He was looking at me that way he did, like he was hypnotized by me. He nuzzled my neck, and when his lips touched mine, shivers dusted my spine. Even now, married five years and with our son sleeping upstairs, my husband still made me feel like this. Content. Like I belonged. Just being with Nate lit me up from the inside.

Nate and I met when I was in my first year of residency. He’d arrested a guy who hadn’t wanted to be arrested, and he’d been stabbed through the metacarpal bones of his palm for his effort.