Samuel
I’ve spent most of my life knowing how things come apart. Knowing where to look when something stops working the way it should, how to trace the problem back to its source, and how to take it apart piece by piece until I find what failed and fix it before it gets worse.
It’s never guesswork.
There’s always a reason.
Something wears down, something slips out of place, something breaks, and if you know what you’re doing, you can put it back together again.
I’ve built my entire life on understanding how things work, and more importantly, how to make them work again.
Tonight, I’m sitting here with my arm around my wife and for the first time in my life, I’m watching something I understand in every way that matters, and yet I can’t fix any of it.
Raven isn’t a blown engine or a stripped bolt. She’s not a part I can replace.
There’s nothing to take apart.
Nothing to rebuild.
Nothing I can get my hands on and make right again.
There’s just this.
Her, sitting beside me.
Breathing slowly. Too slow or maybe not. I don’t know anymore. That’s the worst part. Not knowing what’s normal. Not knowing when something crosses the line from fine into something else.
I’ve spent so many long nights going down rabbit holes I didn’t know existed, reading through medical journals, forums, and case studies with words I didn’t understand.
Anything I could find that might give me something solid to hold onto.
Some kind of pattern or timeline that would make this make sense in a way I could work with.
None of it gave me anything I can use. None of it told me when this moment would become something worse. And none of it told me how to stop it.
The doctor in California reached out two days ago.
I haven’t said that part out loud. He walked me through everything in that careful, measured tone that sounds like hope until you listen close enough to hear what’s missing from it.
The pauses that are a little too long, the words chosen too deliberately, like he was building toward something he already knew I wasn’t going to want to hear.
I’m sorry, Mr. Morgan. The rest of it follows whether I want it to or not. There’s nothing more I can do for your wife.
I don’t know why, but I thanked him anyway.
I haven’t told Raven. Because saying it out loud would make it too real. And I’m not ready for real. So, I keep it to myself.
Instead, I focus on what I can control. Keeping my arm steady as I hold the woman who’s my entire world against me. And I tell myself that it’s enough.
That as long as she’s still leaning into me, as long as I can feel her breathing, as long as I can keep her here beside me—
I haven’t lost anything yet.