There was a pause, almost too long.
“No,” he said, with a smile in his voice.
“I don’t believe we do.”
I felt silly for asking, but something about him unsettled me.
Still, he was kind.
He explained my condition in clear, patient language.
When he described new experimental procedures, he didn’t sound as if he were chasing fame. He sounded determined.
***
Over the next year, he became my primary doctor.
Then he became my friend. He would walk me to the parking lot after appointments and describe the sky.
“It’s one of those clear, sharp blue days,” he told me once.
I laughed.
“That sounds lovely.”
Eventually, he asked me to dinner.
“I know this crosses a line,” he admitted one evening in his office, after my appointment.
“But I’d regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t at least ask. Would you go out on a date with me?”
I should have hesitated.
Doctors dating patients was complicated. But I liked him, so I said yes.
Dating him felt easy.
Nigel described the world to me without pity.
He let me cook, even when I burned things, memorized how I took my coffee, and would place the mug exactly three inches from my right hand.
Two years later, when we got married, he was no longer my doctor.
I traced his face with my fingertips the night before the wedding.
“You have a strong jaw,” I said softly.
“Is that good?” he asked.
He kissed my palm.
“I am.”
We welcomed two children, Ethan and Rose. I learned their faces through touch.
My husband thrived in his career.
He specialized in complex optic nerve reconstruction and spent long nights in his home office. I would wake up at two a.m.
and reach across the bed only to find it empty.
“Stay in bed,” I’d mumble when he finally slid under the covers.
“I’m close,” he would whisper.
“I’m so close to something big.”
I thought he meant it was for a patient.
