She folded her hands.
“Daniel was devoted to her.”
I waited.
“Too devoted sometimes.”
That sounded familiar.
“He came to every appointment. Wrote down every number. Every medication. Every symptom.”
“Measured everything.”
“Yes.”
“Did Rebecca mind?”
Dr. Miller looked at me.
“Sometimes.”
There it was.
A pattern older than our marriage.
“He thinks he failed her.”
“He was a young man facing something he couldn’t control. People sometimes respond to helplessness by trying to control everything measurable.”
I thought about our kitchen pantry.
Labels facing outward.
Spices arranged alphabetically.
Doors checked twice.
My abdomen checked nightly.
“Did she die because he stopped measuring?”
“No.”
Dr. Miller’s answer was immediate.
“Emily, nothing Daniel did or failed to do caused Rebecca’s death.”
“Does he know that?”
“He has been told.”
Not the same answer.
I looked down.
“He whispered, ‘Don’t let it be too late this time.’”
Dr. Miller’s eyes softened.
“That sounds like someone who has spent eighteen years living inside the same moment.”
