I sat at the table with seven months of clean scrubs.
And I realized I’d forgotten to ask the one question that mattered most.
Where was he on Poppy’s birthday?
He was gone when I woke up.
The badge was gone from the hook.
The scrubs were still on the table.
So he’d left in street clothes.
To the hospital.
Or somewhere else.
I didn’t know anymore.
I got Poppy to school.
I canceled a cake tasting.
I sat at my laptop with a cup of coffee going cold.
I don’t know what made me check.
Maybe the word more.
There’s more.
I logged into our bank.
Checking looked normal.
Savings looked normal.
His paychecks had been hitting like clockwork.
Severance, I realized.
Six months of it.
He’d timed everything perfectly.
Then I clicked the last account.
Poppy’s college fund.
We opened it the week she was born.
We put something in every single month.
