I locked my wife in the pantry under the stairs

wrapped in a thermal blanket. Doctors have already looked at him once and promised more tests. Thirty years underground have left marks no one can hide: thin wrists, scarred ankles, eyes sensitive to fluorescent light, lungs that rattle when he breathes too deeply.

I look at him.

“I locked her in.”

He closes his eyes.

“I know.”

“She told me not today.”

“I continue reading …