“Oh,” said his wife.

His wife was silent.

“Henry,” his wife called.

“Are you going out, dear?” his wife said.

Then he heard his wife’s voice from the darkened room.

He heard his wife catch her breath when the door slammed.

“If you see Nick, dear, will you tell him his mother wants to see him?” his wife said.

“Aren’t you going back to work, dear?” asked the doctor’s wife from the room where she was lying with the blinds drawn.