PAGE 1 — THE HOSPITAL HALLWAY

The first thing I noticed was the hospital bracelet around her wrist.

The second was how thin that wrist had become.

I was halfway down the fourth-floor corridor of Mercy Lake Hospital when I stopped so suddenly that a nurse nearly walked into my back.

At first, I convinced myself I was mistaken.

The woman sitting beneath the window looked nothing like the person I had shared a bed with for five years.

Her shoulders disappeared inside an oversized hospital gown. Her dark hair, once long enough to fall halfway down her back, had been cut just below her ears.

An IV line ran from her hand to a metal pole beside the chair.

She wasn’t reading.

She wasn’t looking at her phone.

She wasn’t even watching the people passing her.

She was simply staring at the floor.

Then she lifted her face.

And my stomach dropped.

“Sophie?”

Her eyes widened.

For several seconds, neither of us moved.

Then she whispered my name.

“Ethan?”

I had imagined seeing my ex-wife again a hundred different ways.

At a grocery store.

At some restaurant with another man.

Maybe across the street someday, both of us pretending not to notice each other.

I had never imagined finding her alone in a hospital gown two months after our divorce.

And I definitely hadn’t imagined being terrified that she might die.

I walked toward her slowly.

“What are you doing here?”

She looked away.

“I’m fine.”

I stared at the IV connected to her hand.

“You’re sitting in a hospital gown with an IV in your arm.”

She didn’t answer.

“Sophie… what happened?”

She swallowed.

“They’re running tests.”

I looked at her face again.

She was trying desperately to make herself look calm.

But I could see the fear in her eyes.

Then a nurse approached us with a clipboard.

“Ms. Bennett?”

Sophie looked up.

“The physician would like to speak with your emergency contact before discharge planning.”

The nurse glanced at me.

“Are you Ethan Walker?”

“Yes.”

Her expression changed slightly.

“Good. We’ve been trying to reach you.”

I looked at Sophie.

She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

And suddenly I realized there was something about this hospital visit she hadn’t told me.

Something much bigger than I had imagined.