It was early autumn, one of those afternoons when the sky hangs low and gray, when Maya decided to drive to the next town to help organize a book donation. A delivery van skidded through an intersection slick with rain and struck her car from the side.
The phone rang while I was grading papers. I remember staring at the red pen in my hand, noticing how it trembled as I listened to a stranger explain that my wife was alive, but badly injured.
At the hospital, I barely recognized her. The woman who used to walk briskly through the house humming absentminded tunes lay motionless beneath white sheets, her eyes wide with fear, her voice reduced to a whisper.
The diagnosis came slowly, layered in medical terms that felt unreal. A severe spinal injury. Loss of mobility from the waist down. No guarantees.
From that moment on, my world narrowed to a single axis, one that revolved entirely around her bed.