I felt terrible for him. You don’t spend thirty-one years with a man and not want to see him confident.

I decided to fix it.

I started picking up extra shifts. I worked holidays. I worked weekends. I took an old Folgers coffee can, cut a slit in the plastic lid, and hid it in the back of the pantry behind the canned tomatoes. Every week, I dropped fifty or a hundred dollars inside.

I skipped my own mammogram because the co-pay was too high. I wore the same pair of nursing shoes until the soles flapped open.

It took me two and a half years to save the money.

The day I handed him the cream folder from the dental clinic, he cried. Real tears. He hugged me and called me his angel. I drove him to every appointment. I blended his meals for two weeks while his gums healed. I bought the special mouthwash.

When the final permanent crowns were placed, he looked in the rearview mirror all the way home. He was a new man. He sat up straighter. He laughed louder.

I thought I had bought our marriage back. I didn’t know I had just purchased his escape ticket.

Six weeks. That was exactly how long it took.

Six weeks after the swelling went down and the final check cleared, he packed his duffel bag and walked out.

I stood in the kitchen for twenty minutes, listening to the silence of the empty house. The refrigerator hummed. The coffee maker clicked off. I was still wearing my blue scrubs. I was so tired my bones ached.

I walked down the hallway to his home office. The door was open.

He had packed his clothes, but in his rush to leave, he forgot one thing. His silver iPad was sitting on the wooden desk, plugged into the charger.

The screen lit up. A notification banner dropped down from the top edge.

*Maria: Are you at the airport yet? I miss you.*