Chapter 5: The Saint

"I'm not angry at her," Owen said to the camera.

"I just want my wife to come home."

Wren paused the video, and his wet red eyes stayed frozen on the screen.

"Play it," I said.

She pressed the button, and he went on.

"Libby and I have been through four years of fertility treatment. Four years of hope and loss. I've held her through every one."

He rubbed his face with his hand.

"Yesterday she lost her composure at a harmless prank. That isn't who she is. She isn't herself, and I'm asking everyone to be gentle."

By Sunday noon the video had two hundred thousand views.

The comments were the worst part, because they were so kind.

What a good man.

He's a saint. He's stuck with her through all of that.

Praying for him. Praying she gets help.

The Harborside Hope Walk had posted it on its own page, with a heart.

Wren read some of the comments out loud in the voice she used for bad news in the ER.

Then she took the phone away.

"You are not reading the rest," she said.

On Monday morning, I had a message from the mother of one of my patients, a seven-year-old boy I had seen every week since September.

Hi Libby. Just so you know, we're going to pause therapy for a while. Please understand.

I read it standing in Wren's hallway.

I had taught that boy to tie his shoes.

I did what I had decided to do on the couch the night before.

I put on a plain gray dress, and I went to a lawyer.

She was a small woman with reading glasses on her head, and her office was above a bakery.

She heard me out without once saying she was sorry.

"I can file today," she said. "And I'd like him served in person, with a witness, so he can't say it never arrived. Where will he be at eleven?"

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