“I don’t know.”
The lie was obvious.
He walked toward the front door, and I followed despite his attempt to stop me.
When he opened it, a woman in a navy blazer stood on the porch beside a man wearing a hospital identification badge. Both looked shaken. The woman’s eyes moved from Daniel to me, and one hand rose to cover her mouth.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathed. Then her expression collapsed into guilt. “We are so sorry.”
The word sorry dropped into my stomach like a stone.
“What happened?” I asked.
The woman straightened, though her hands remained tightly clasped. “My name is Linda. I’m the patient services director at Green Valley Surgical Center. This is Mark, the supervisor of the recovery unit.”
Mark gave a strained nod.
Linda looked at Daniel before turning back to me. “We came because there was a serious mistake.”
My hand rose again toward my bandages. “With the surgery?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Your operation was successful.”
I stared at her. “The surgeon told me that.”
She blinked. “You were told?”
“Yes. So why is my husband acting as though something terrible happened?”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
Linda drew a slow breath. “Because something terrible did happen—but not to you.”
The room went silent.
Mark stepped forward. “When your husband came to the recovery area, another patient had just been brought in after a similar procedure. Your last names were very close, and for several minutes, the wrong chart was placed beside the wrong bed.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Mark continued. “Mr. Daniel asked to see his wife. A nurse believed he was standing beside your bed.”
My pulse began to race. “Whose bed was it?”
Linda’s face tightened with pain. “Another woman who had undergone nasal surgery.”
She paused, choosing each word carefully.
“Her operation had involved severe complications. She was heavily bandaged, and there was significant trauma and swelling.”
I reached for Daniel’s arm. Beneath my fingers, he was shaking.
“I thought she was you,” he said.
His voice sounded far away.
“I walked into that room and saw her lying there. I kept waiting for someone to stop me. I kept expecting them to say I had the wrong patient.”
No one spoke.
“But nobody did,” he continued. “So I held her hand. I told her I loved her. I thought I was saying goodbye to my wife.”
Tears filled my eyes again, but this time they came for him.
“Daniel…”
He looked at me, and I saw the terror he had been trying to carry alone.
“I asked why you looked like that. They told me swelling was different for every person. I thought they were trying to protect me from the truth.”
Mark’s expression crumpled. “We were not trying to deceive you. We simply had not yet realized the identification error.”
“How long?” I asked.
