Because I was going to be all right.
That belonged to me.
Later, when he came into the room, he stood by the door.
“How are you?”
“Tired.”
“Good tired or terrible tired?”
“Drugged tired.”
He smiled.
Then his eyes dropped toward the blanket before immediately returning to my face.
I knew what he wanted to ask.
“What did they find?”
But he didn’t.
So I told him.
“It looked benign.”
His face crumpled.
Daniel turned away.
Pressed his hand to his mouth.
For several seconds, he couldn’t speak.
I had seen him cry only twice in seventeen years.
He sat beside the bed without touching me.
“Can I hold your hand?”
I nodded.
He did.
A strange peace came over me.
Not reconciliation.
Something smaller.
Safer.
Maybe honesty.
Pathology confirmed the mass was benign.
A large uterine fibroid with no evidence of malignancy.
Dr. Miller called personally.
“You frightened me,” she admitted.
