Prologue
Midnight was upon us, and with it had descended a primeval desire to camouflage ourselves against whatever lay beyond the darkness. I pulled the curtains closed, leaned the framed photograph against the wall behind Ray’s desk, and studied it for a moment before rejoining my husband on the couch. In the photo, Ray was smiling and seated at his command commode in the charge nurse’s office, his eyes as bright a blue as the scrubs he wore. Generously splashed around that smile were the autographs of his co-workers.
Sitting back down next to Ray, I lifted my glass of celebratory champagne. “So, what was it really like? Taking care of patients, I mean. Was it worth it? Did you learn anything in the last forty years you didn’t already know about yourself?”
My husband looked at me with a twinkle in his eye that betrayed the enormity that would constitute a response, and I settled in for a wild ride……