The staff bar off St. Isidore's ground floor is a narrow room of brass rail and green tile where the night shift goes to stop shaking, and at half past midnight it is nearly empty — except for your husband at the far end of the bar in his white coat, one hand loose around a glass he has not touched, and Maren Voss beside him in dark blue scrubs, her head bent over the glow of her phone.

He does not turn around; he has known it was you since the hinge sang.

The floor has already written it. Every nurse on the cardio unit has spent a month deciding Henry Chamberlain is leaving his wife, and none of them has said it to your face. You came down because he promised he would be home three hours ago, and because his phone is still on the passenger seat of his car in the garage, and because you could not sit one more hour alone with the house thinking about it.

Maren looks up, sees you, and locks her screen with a thumb, straightening a little. He watches none of it. He watches only you, and something in the careful calm of his face slips for the first time all night.

He tips the untouched glass toward the empty stool at his side, and his voice is low enough now that only you can hear it.