She had a tattoo on her right ankle.

One that I’d trace with my finger
every night as we lay on the couch,
her feet lazily crossed one over the other -
always right over left, never left over right.

The tattoo was of a heart.
A picture of atriums and ventricles
and all the anatomy I’d learned
in sophomore year Biology,
the diagram filled in and colored with begonias.
Her favorite flower.
I used to wonder how the artist could design
something so intricate in such a small space.

“Why a heart?” I asked one night.

Her answer:
“To remind me of the muscle that separates us from death.”

I never saw the signs.
That she laid awake at night
while I slept soundly beside her.
That her appetite had waned,
along with the motivation to
pursue the things she once loved.
Including me.

I never noticed
that her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes,
or how she preferred to dull the pain
with our favorite Scottish ale.

I turned the key
and opened the door to our apartment one evening,
finding that same heart elevated
five feet above the ground.
Dangling back and forth, slowly.
Lifelessly.
And one sentence came to my lips
like a broken record
as I cut the rope and started CPR.

“I failed you. I failed you. I failed you.”

That heart stopped beating in time with mine.