When the Lights Go Out, the Vows Get Tested in the Dark

and fear.

A nurse asked me, gentle but firm, “Has she been falling a lot?”

“She stumbles,” I said. “I catch her.”

Another nurse looked at my bruises. “Are you hurt?”

“Only where love hits the bone,” I wanted to say.

But I just said, “No.”

They separated me from her for a while—more forms, more questions, more eyes watching for the moment I’d slip up and continue reading …