Lauren set the sweatshirt on the chair and looked directly at me. “No,” she said quietly. “He didn’t.” Nathan sat rigidly against the pillow, the monitor beside him ticking out his heartbeat. “Then perhaps you should tell me,” I said. Lauren glanced at Nathan, and something in her expression told me this was not the affair I had already imagined.

“Nathan has a heart condition,” she said. My anger faltered. She explained that he had a genetic rhythm disorder, inherited from his father, and had been diagnosed at thirty-six. Months earlier, Nathan had collapsed at work and undergone testing. The results showed a condition that could cause dangerous episodes without warning. Lauren had become his emergency contact because he was terrified I would spend every day watching him instead of living my life. I looked at my husband, realizing the secret was not romantic. It was something much more frightening.