The first time I saw my wife it was February; I was as miserable as a woman could be, and unfit for human company. Still, there was a jolt of recognition, a feeling that if we met in better times, we would surely become friends. Our maiden introduction had gone absolutely nowhere, but when our paths crossed again that summer, a tentative bond began to flourish.

It was soon apparent that she was interested in something more, but I felt incapable of it. At the same time, I knew that if I ever rejoined the living she was someone I would’ve pursued. She was intelligent, mature, rational, kind and terrifyingly ambitious, all qualities I greatly valued—and she could quickly and unerringly select the right Arrested Development quote for every occasion. More than anything, I admired her emotional strength, deep reserves of empathy and dedication to a job that required every bit of both.

Had I confided to anyone back then that I knew I could win her heart, they would’ve stared in bafflement and perhaps even concern. On paper, she’s absurdly out of my league. But we had a lot in common, much of it bleak and inaccessible to our peers. (Our childhoods weren’t particularly relatable, for very different reasons.) Besides that, the bar was set lower than anyone realized. What she wanted most of all was a partner who could make her laugh. That was within my wheelhouse, though I wasn’t quite as sure whether proving it was in our best interests.

She was early in residency, an inconvenient stage of anyone’s career. Training would tie her to our city for years to come, and I’d been preparing to move out of state. The first time she saw my house, it was nearly empty. Thirty-hour shifts consumed her time, and there was no cellphone reception in the bowels of the hospital. She might send a flurry of texts around dinner and abruptly disappear until the next morning. Once she was back home she’d crash for hours with her phone muted. That’s fine for a friendship, less conducive to sustaining a new relationship.

One afternoon at work, as I considered how to reply to her latest overture, “Jump” came on the radio. For reasons I’ll never fully comprehend, Van Halen persuaded me to say yes. The lyrics were as asinine as David Lee Roth’s spandex was blinding, but the pre-chorus was oddly persuasive. “Oh, can’t you see me standing here/I got my back against the record machine,” Roth sang beseechingly (if you’re charitable enough to call it that). “I ain’t the worst that you’ve seen/Oh, can’t you see what I mean?” My confidence wasn’t at an all-time high, but, what the hell, maybe she’d seen worse.

Fall came, bringing with it our first date. We planned something short, in case it was a disaster, but instead we spoke for hours. At the end of the evening we said goodbye and I felt wistful. Being around her was easy and fun; our conversation was never boring. But I remained skeptical that I was relationship-ready. She was perceptive; certainly she’d sensed that and taken note. Perhaps she would feel a twinge of regret while arranging her next date with a more qualified candidate. Months later she heard that and grinned; she’d been struggling with self-doubts of her own but had gone home that night thinking “I can stop looking now.”

Her schedule left time for two dates per week, but apologetic calls sometimes came while dinner was in the oven: “I’m sorry, I can’t make it. I was about to leave and my pager went off…” Weekday dates were at my house, where I’d cook and we’d talk, then watch an episode or two of an old sitcom. We retired prematurely to bed, like geriatrics, and not only for the typical new relationship reasons. She was perpetually exhausted from work, and I headed to the office first thing in the morning. On weekends we went to museums, concerts and libraries, and took long walks to our favorite Thai and Indian restaurants. 

As I mowed the yard for the last time in the autumn of 2014, Sia’s “Hostage” came blaring from my iPod Shuffle. I’d downloaded 1000 Forms of Fear a few days prior and wasn’t yet familiar with it. The song’s lyrics, about the illicit thrills and secret torments of infidelity, were strangely resonant. My new relationship wasn’t adulterous in the conventional sense of the word, but I was most decidedly the other woman—every moment we spent together felt stolen from her job. That scarcity of time meant anticipation was always high as our next date rolled around. As usual, we wouldn’t see each other again for several days. But for the first time all year, I felt hopeful.