I stared at the last name printed beneath it. My mouth went dry. It couldn’t be. There had to be a thousand men with that name in this state alone.
I pushed the door open.
When I lifted my eyes to the man in the bed.
I knew him the instant I looked up from the chart.
Fifty-six years hadn’t erased that face. Thomas was thinner, paler, hollowed out by whatever was eating him from the inside, but those eyes were the same eyes that had begged me to stay when we were teenagers.
He smiled as if he’d been waiting for me.
I knew him the instant I looked up.
“Hello, Nancy,” he said, as soft as a Sunday morning.
I couldn’t speak for a moment. I just stood there with the blood pressure cuff in my hand, feeling my whole life catch up to me in one hospital room.
“Thomas,” I finally managed. “My goodness. Thomas!”
***
After that, I found reasons to check on him every shift.
I couldn’t speak for a moment.
My high school sweetheart told me he’d never been married either.
We laughed about our gray hair and our bad knees, and sometimes we didn’t talk at all. We just sat together.
“You still take your coffee black?” he asked one afternoon.
“Still do.”
“I knew it.”
There was something odd about how calm he was. Most patients in his condition were angry, scared, or numb. Thomas seemed almost peaceful, like a man who’d been holding his breath for a long time and could finally let it out.
He’d never been married.
***
One morning, Thomas asked me, as carefully as a man stepping onto thin ice, “Do you have family nearby, Nancy? Anyone looking in on you?”
“Just a distant cousin. Raymond. He’s been calling more lately.”
Thomas’s jaw tightened, just for a second. Then it relaxed, and he changed the subject to the weather.
I didn’t think much of it at the time.
“Do you have family nearby?”
***
Raymond’s calls got stranger that same week.
“Are you seeing anyone, Nancy? At your age, you shouldn’t be alone. Family should have each other’s backs.”
“I’m fine, Raymond.”
“Have you thought about a will? God forbid, but you know. Somebody responsible ought to be listed.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He asked about my bank and the apartment. He mentioned Aunt Margaret again and how he’d “helped her with everything” at the end. I remembered Margaret dying alone in a rented room, and I couldn’t figure out why that sat so wrong in my stomach.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
I brushed it off. I always brushed things off. That was my whole life in one sentence.
***
Then came the afternoon.
Thomas asked me to sit down.
His hand found mine on the blanket. It was cold and light as a bird.
“Sweetheart,” he said, “I feel terrible asking you this.”
By then, our conversations had become warmer with each passing day.
“Ask.”
Then came the afternoon.
“I’ve loved you my entire life. I know I’m going to die soon. But I’ve always dreamed of marrying you. Will you marry me? It’s my last wish.”
I could barely breathe. I couldn’t even blink.
Fifty-six years of “what if,” and here it was, thin and dying in a hospital bed, asking me the one question I’d never let myself imagine.
A voice in my head that sounded exactly like Raymond hissed, “Foolish old woman, don’t you dare!”
And another voice, the one I’d silenced at 17, said, “Say yes! For once in your life, say yes!”
“I’ve loved you my entire life.”
Thomas had stage 4 cancer. I decided I would grant his final wish.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Thomas, yes.”
His eyes filled with tears. So did mine.
“You won’t regret it,” he said. “I promise you that, Nancy. On my life, you won’t regret it.”
I didn’t understand then why he’d said it like that, like a vow that meant more than the wedding itself.
I only understood I’d just agreed to marry a dying man; my hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and somewhere across town, Raymond was probably already dialing my number.
I would grant his final wish.
***
The wedding took place three days later, right there in Thomas’s hospital room.
A nurse stood as our witness, and so did a quiet man in a gray suit who introduced himself as Walter, Thomas’s attorney.
I thought it was a little odd to have a lawyer at a bedside wedding. But my high school sweetheart squeezed my hand, and I let the thought go.
His eyes shone when he said his vows. Mine did too.
I thought it was a little odd.
***
After the small ceremony, Walter pulled a folder from his briefcase and set it on the rolling tray table.
“Just a few papers, Nancy,” he said kindly. “Standard things. Take your time.”
I didn’t take my time. I signed each one right where he pointed, trusting Thomas the way you trust the sun to come up.
***
