When my fingers slammed against the switch, the room flooded with harsh, blinding light. The stranger gasped, dropping the silver syringe back into his velvet-lined black case, while my wife let out a sharp, terrified cry, shielding her eyes from the sudden glare. I bolted upright in bed, my chest heaving with five seconds of pure, unadulterated rage before the scene in front of me froze my blood in an entirely different way.

The man wasn’t a secret lover. He was a middle-aged man wearing dark green medical scrubs under his heavy winter coat, a stethoscope peeking out from his pocket, and a look of profound, professional exhaustion on his face.

“David, please!” my wife wept, instantly throwing herself between me and the man, her hands trembling as she pulled up the sleeve of her nightshirt. “Let him finish! Please, he’s only trying to keep me alive!”

I stared, completely paralyzed, as the anger evaporated from my veins, replaced by a cold, suffocating dread. My eyes traveled from the sterile syringe to my wife’s bare arm. Underneath the long sleeves she had worn for months to hide them from me and Sonia, her skin was a mosaic of deep purple bruises, tracking marks, and medical tape.

part2