So it’s that simple, and I don’t know if the sky really clears on cue, but beams of sunlight I hadn’t noticed earlier now drop anchor in ground that feels more solid under newly firm feet—and me, I’m light as air. My heart is my friend again, pumping blood to every striation of every muscle in every limb, and I could run a million miles. I ran a marathon once, when I was twenty.

There’s a folded pile of clean clothes on top of the washing machine, so I change into shorts and a T-shirt and my favorite merino wool socks—workout clothes I’ve been wasting on lazy Sundays, these days—and lace up bright white sneakers, unconcerned about whether or not my gym membership is current, because the gatekeepers at my gym require a handwritten note from God to break a contract. More important, the boy behind me is crackling and dissolving. The space in me that overflowed with rage is now hollow, with mere traces of residual rage. I could save them for Elizabeth, or I could leave them in the backyard to crackle and dissolve. I could hang hate on the scaffolding caging my marriage, or I could build us back up with love.

From the bottom of the stairs, I call up to Elizabeth to say, “Heading to the gym. Think about where you want to eat tonight. We’re going out.” I grab my keys and wallet and yell, “Just us,” and I’m gone.

The sun peels off the last cloud in its solar striptease, and the landscape sizzles. On the radio, Johnny Cash and June Carter are singing Bob Dylan’s song, and I turn up the volume and sing along, full voice. Windows down, I laugh out loud, liberated at last from the back-and-forth in my brain, the what-ifs and hauntings. My life is mine again.

The gym is crowded. A gal name-tagged Claudia checks me in at the front desk. There must be a note in my account indicating my hiatus, because she says, “It’s been a while. So glad to see you back, Dr. Hart.” She hands over clean towels. “Hey. You look really familiar.”

“A young Daniel Day-Lewis?” I joke. “Afraid not, but I get it all the time.”

She giggles: a perfectly girly little thing. “Come on.”

“No? Well, I’m not Harry Connick Jr., either.”

“I’m being serious. Were you in the paper recently?”

I shrug, playing bashful.

“That’s it.”

“It’s no Oscar, no Grammy, but . . .”

“You’re doing work with the Children’s Hospital, right?”

I grin and take my towels. “Today I’m just a regular guy at the gym.”

Claudia apologizes, believing she’s crossed a boundary, so I say, “No big deal,” and leave her to wonder about my big deal while I find a treadmill and run and run and run.

•  •  •