I thought marrying my terminally ill patient was an act of kindness. After her funeral, her sister handed me a box bearing my name. Before I finished reading its contents, an accusation threatened everything I’d worked to achieve.
I was thirty, a doctor with a white coat, a medical degree, and student loans that still frightened me.
Medicine had always been my dream. My parents couldn’t cover tuition, so I studied during the week and worked weekends. By the time I met Alicia, I believed my toughest years were over.
She was eighteen and easily the funniest patient on our oncology ward. Even exhausted by treatment, she could make nurses laugh while they changed her bedding.
“Doctor Lucas, you know smiling is free, right?”
I’d try to look stern until she made me smile.
Six weeks after we met, she caught me checking a loan reminder.
“Bad news?”
