***
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.”
