I worked two jobs to help fulfill my husband’s dream of becoming a doctor — at his graduation, he handed me divorce papers, but just as I was walking away, one of his classmates said, “Before you leave, there’s something you should know.”

I set my coffee cup down.

“He’s withdrawing voluntarily?”

“His lawyer framed it as a personal decision.

But yes.

The alternative was a formal inquiry.” Ruth’s voice was steady.

“He’ll need to reapply through standard channels.

Without the connection.

Whatever he gets next, he’ll have earned.”

I looked at the plant on the counter.

“Ruth,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“You did the work,” she said.

“I just organized it.”

We agreed to meet that afternoon to review the final documents.

I hung up and stood in the kitchen for a moment.

Then I picked up my phone and found the contact I had been thinking about for several days.

It rang twice.

“Hello?” said a voice I hadn’t heard in six years.

“Dr.

Okafor,” I said.

“This is Claire.

I was in your first-year cohort.

Dr.

Okafor’s office was exactly as I remembered it.