A Widow's Story

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On a February morning in 2008, Joyce Carol Oates drove her ailing husband, Raymond Smith, to the emergency room where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Both Joyce and Ray expected him to be released in a day or two. But in less than a week, Ray was dead from a hospital-acquired virulent infection, and Joyce was suddenly faced with the stunning reality of a life absent of the partnership that had sustained her for nearly half a century.