Henry stared at Martha, his voice barely more than a whisper as he repeated, “Seventy-three more votes?” The oxygen machine hummed beside him, filling the silence as she folded her hands in her lap, eyes lowered, almost shy. She took a breath, the faintest trace of a smile at the corner of her mouth, and said softly, “Do you remember how surprised you were when you won by a landslide?”

For a moment, nothing moved. Then the meaning hit him, not like a thunderclap but like an old joke finally landing after a lifetime. His hurt, his love, his exhaustion all tangled together until he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Martha reached for his hand, her grip warm and steady. “I did what I thought I had to,” she murmured. In that strange, fragile space between outrage and gratitude, Henry realized this was their marriage in miniature: flawed, absurd, fiercely loyal in its own crooked way.