He left, and I haven’t spoken to him as his wife since.

My daughter Emma spent two months in the NICU. I lived at that hospital, sleeping in chairs, learning how to care for a premature infant, dealing with my own recovery and the excruciating pain of the burn treatments. Tyler visited twice. His parents never came at all.

Those two months transformed me in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. Every day brought new challenges. Emma’s oxygen levels dropping. My bandages needing to be changed. The soul-crushing exhaustion of worry. But it also brought clarity.

I’d wake up in the uncomfortable recliner next to Emma’s incubator at six in the morning. My entire midsection would be throbbing, the burned skin tight and angry beneath layers of medical gauze. I’d shuffle to the bathroom, catch sight of myself in the mirror, and barely recognize the woman staring back. My face had hollowed out from stress and poor eating. Dark circles shadowed my eyes. But there was something else, too. A hardness that hadn’t been there before.