As we waited, Stephen shared a room with Frank, a successful businessman with a close family. He was sad and disengaged much of the time. But when the phone rang and Stephen told Frank’s wife that her husband wasn’t available at the moment, that he was off hang-gliding, Frank laughed. He had routine valve surgery a day later, and died on the table. The line between life and death was thinning.

Stephen’s thallium test showed extensive damage. Two days later, he went for his angioplasty. It didn’t work. Again, there was too much damage. We waited to find out if he was eligible for bypass surgery.

I didn’t know this at the time, but doctors expected him to die. You don’t operate on a heart that has just suffered an attack unless you have to. You wait until the heart is stronger. But in Stephen’s case, time had run out. He was scheduled for emergency quadruple bypass surgery without further delay.

The family continued to rally, and Stephen’s older brother came to Toronto. I know now that he packed a dark suit, just in case. So had Stephen’s mother. I’m glad I didn’t know at the time. I fully expected Stephen to make it, against all odds. We had to have a second chance.

I split my time running between the hospital and the downtown campus where I taught, and I moved into the nurses’ residence to be closer to the hospital. The children coped. They took on extra chores, made their lunches for school, and, twice before the surgery, visited their dad. As Stephen completed yet another test and lay on the bed exhausted and slightly radioactive, they snuggled under his arms. The nurses said a minuscule amount of radiation was a fair trade for time with their dad before surgery.

Later that day, a doctor came in to talk about the operation and, music to my ears, its aftermath: how long before Stephen could climb the stairs, how long before he could pick up a bag. Half-jokingly, I asked how long it would be until Stephen could have sex. The doctor looked at me scathingly. I kept quiet after that.

Stephen has virtually forgotten what happened during the three days before the operation. That’s not unusual after major surgery. He does, however, remember the social worker coming in and sitting with us as we wrote up a power of attorney. He remembers how carefully we thought through the request that heroic measures be used unless there was no hope. And he remembers joking around with the social worker about being part of the three-foot-under club — in other words, half dead.

But Stephen has forgotten everything else. He doesn’t remember the most surprising and reassuring thing: how sex is the most rational response to standing on the precipice. Two nights before the operation, we drew the curtains around his bed and shocked the nurse who entered unexpectedly.

The surgeon came by the next night. Tall, lean, well-scrubbed, confident. He was perfect. If you could trust anyone to cut open your heart, he was your man. Later we learned that he was the only doctor in the hospital who felt he could handle the delicacy of the operation on such a damaged heart within days of multiple attacks. Stephen told him to get a good night’s sleep. The surgeon told us he was optimistic. Then he left, and Stephen and I once again drew the curtain around the bed. They’re right, those who say that Eros is the opposite of Thanatos.

That night, in my unfamiliar room in the nurses’ residence, I dreamt I was skateboarding around a large bus terminal. I fell. A bus backed up, and the wheels stopped on my chest. It didn’t crush me. I survived.