Gio doesn’t like the sight of the tourist-town urgent care, with its peeling blue paint and nineties era sign. He looks at me with raised eyebrows. It’s not in a fancy medical park, like some of the offices in the city. No. This urgent care is nestled between a pizza place with a play area out front and a party store with a blinking neon sign.

“We’re going,” I tell him firmly, and I keep the strict look on my face all through the check-in process at the reception desk.

They hand him a clipboard and pen and we take our seats next to a fake potted plant. I look over Gio’s shoulder while he fills out his information. At Emergency Contact, he hesitates. Then he prints my name, as neat as I’ve ever seen it. Then he hands the pen over to me, a little smile on his face.

“What?” I ask him. I have to dig my phone out of my pocket to get the number. It’s too new. I don’t have it memorized yet.

“That,” Gio whispers, tapping the phone.

Right. A phone for my new life. Joy sizzles down my shoulders to my fingertips while I write the number next to his strong handwriting.

It takes all of ten minutes in the exam room, including the wait, for the doctor to tell Gio that he has tonsillitis.

“I don’t think surgery is necessary at this point,” he says, blinking through his glasses, eyes mainly focused on the screen of the laptop he brought in with him. His fingers never stop moving over the keys, and he said his name so quickly I can’t remember what it is. “I recommend a course of antibiotics, and some painkillers. Any questions?”

Gio shakes his head, and the doctor is gone.

As soon as the door shuts behind him, I go to where Gio sits on the exam table and nuzzle my nose into the side of his neck. I’m practically high on this feeling, of being in a private room like this with him. I can do this now. I’m his wife. He leans against me, and I do the only appropriate thing in this moment. I kiss his cheek and whisper “I told you so” into his ear.

He swallows, giving me a brave smile as he does. “That sounds a lot like I love you, Gio.”

“I do love you. Now stop talking. It’s breaking my heart.”

I pay the bill and we go back out to the car. Gio’s shoulders look relaxed for the first time since yesterday, and he leans his head against the seat. We’re two blocks away from the urgent care by the time I glance over again.

His eyes are closed.

God, how much he must trust me. It’s a flicker in the back of my mind, this thought—that now is the time I could make my escape. Now is the time I could open the car door, step outside, and never look back. He’s sick. He’s in no condition to follow me, and I know as well as the next person that you can go a long way on a pretty smile and the hint of a flirt. I could go home, if I wanted. Now. Right now.

But even that tiny seed of a thought makes my stomach churn. How would I live, apart from Gio? How would I feel the wedding ring against my finger and still turn away. No, my soul screams. No.

So I don’t run.

Of course I don’t run.

The Sia who would have run is dead.

Instead, I slip my hand into his and steer the car with the other. We go through the pharmacy drive-through. My heart leaps when I say his name, and leaps again when I say yes, I’m his wife.

At the cottage, I turn the key in the ignition and the Focus settles into the driveway. Gio stretches in the seat beside me, the paper bag in his lap crinkling. “Much better now,” he croaks.

“Ha.”

He won’t let me help him out of the car, but he does let me put my arm around his waist on the way into the cottage.

He takes the first of the pills, the first of the painkillers, and I lead him by the hand to the bed.

Gio pauses at the side. He shakes his head.

“Don’t argue with me,” I tell him, hand on my hip. “Bed.”

He climbs in and stretches out with a sigh that sounds like it holds the weight of all the world.

He’s a sight, Gio. Tall and leanly muscled, his gray t-shirt a precise fit. My heart does a jerky flip-flop, looking at him, and then it squeezes, warm and aching. Because Gio rests his head on the pillow and closes his eyes. I trace the line of his jaw with a fingertip. This is the line of his face as a man. These are the years that separated us. But with his eyelashes resting on his cheeks, he looks so fucking vulnerable I want to rest my head on his chest and cry.

“Gio?”

No answer.

I let my hand fall to the blankets. I’d get under the covers with him, but there are dishes in the kitchen sink. Normally we split the dishes, the cleaning, but I’ll give him a pass. This once.

While I’m doing the dishes, I catch sight of the blue water across the street. It’s not the lake itself that draws my attention, but the little blonde girl, chasing through the grass, the man with a prosthetic foot going after her in huge loping strides. It looks like he’s been doing it all his life. I’m disgustingly curious, but no, I’m not going to stalk the guy next door just to ask him about his foot. That, out of everything that’s happened lately, would be crazy.

Gio’s still sleeping when the last plate is dried.

I dust.

I sweep.

The motion feels good, after all that worry about Gio. There’s a public path to the beach two doors down. Why not? I get my flip flops and go.

It’s as warm as a hug outside and I can’t help basking in it. I love the heat. Maybe Gio and I should go to other warm places. The country is full of them—Florida, Arizona, California. We could make a life of it, if we wanted. We might not have a choice.

That thought threatens to send me into a dark mood. I focus on the sunlight dancing on the lake’s surface and force it away.

We might be running now, but it won’t be like this forever. Nothing is forever. My mother taught me that.

I stand on the shore, my toes dipped into the water, and think about her.

As an adult, it’s clear to me that she was under an intense amount of stress. As a girl, I knew it but didn’t really know it. She was always laughing, always smiling. I didn’t recognize it as a front. It was only her personality, and I only knew that for certain toward the end of her life, when everything changed.

The fear in her eyes—God, it was always there, every waking moment. I thought it was about the cancer. I thought it was about death. But there was more for her to worry about than death. She was terrified for me.

And she was right.

I can picture her so clearly, lying in her bed, eyes wide, searching my face for a promise.

It’s like her eyes are on me now.

No...

It’s like someone’s eyes are on me now.

I jerk my head up and look down the beach, first one way, then the other. Far in the distance a family splashes in the water.

Maybe the trees behind me?

Nothing.

There’s no sign of movement, but I swear, I swear...

I rub a hand along the back of my neck.

I wait until it feels natural, then move quickly along the path back to the house. I check all the locks. I peer out into the yard. I’m becoming Gio.

My heart picks up. Gio.

I burst into the bedroom, expecting disaster.

There is none.

Gio is sprawled on the bed, arms thrown above his head, sleeping deeply.

Don’t think about it, I command myself, and through sheer force of will I read a novel straight into the evening, until my eyelids are heavy. One more check of the locks, and I crawl in bed next to my husband.

His even breathing calms me.

I’m going to stay awake, listening for any sign that something’s wrong, but the next thing I know, Gio shifts in the bed. I pat groggily at his arm. “It’s okay.”

“Okay,” he says, his voice sounding less tortured.

We sleep until morning, curled up with one another.