I was twenty-nine and my mother had been dead for eight months. Volunteering at the hospital was the only thing I'd found that made the hole in my week look like it was doing something for somebody. For about a year I sat with patients who had nobody. That's an actual role in that hospital. There's a waiting list of names and about eleven of us.
He was on my list in January. Seventy-two. End-stage heart failure. Grey, thin, permanently tired — and he smiled at me every single time I came through that door, as though I'd done something remarkable by arriving.
We talked. Within about four visits I was going in on days I wasn't rostered. He asked me about my mother, and I told him things I hadn't told my own friends — which I put down at the time to the particular honesty you get with somebody who's going to d.i.e.
Then on a Thursday afternoon he took hold of my hand.
"Marry me," he said, his voice a whisper.
My heart went sideways. "You're d.y.i.n.g. We've known each other nine days."
"I don't want the state handling my last hours. My last wish is to leave here as somebody's husband, and not as a file with a number on it."
I said no. I want that on the record. I said no on the Thursday and again on the Friday morning. And on the Friday afternoon he said one more sentence:
"There's nobody else, and there isn't time to find anybody."
Chapter 2: The Wedding
Two days later a hospital chaplain married us in a side room on the fourth floor with two nurses as witnesses. I wore a yellow sweater, because it's what I had on. There was no ring, so he took the pull tab off a soda can on his tray, worked it round with his thumbnail, and put it on my finger — and apologised for the edge of it.
He lived seven more days. By Tuesday he could manage about four sentences before he had to stop. By Thursday he was mostly not talking at all. What he did with the sentences he had left is the part I go back to.
He asked me about my mother's garden. He asked whether she'd been funny — which nobody had asked me in eight months — and I said yes, and he said good, and made me tell him a thing she used to say about the neighbour's hedge.
On the Thursday night, he said something I didn't understand and then did.
"You're going to be angry with me, and I'd rather be alive for it, but I've run out of the right order to do things in."
I asked him what he meant. He said: "Nothing. I'm tired."
Chapter 3: The Green Backpack
I didn't leave that room. I slept in a chair for six nights. On the seventh night, he passed away. The hospital staff was kind, and they gave me some time alone with him. I held his hand, feeling the coldness spread through his fingers, and whispered a final goodbye.
Seven days later, his lawyer arrived at my apartment. He was a tall man with a stern face, but his eyes held a hint of sadness. He handed me a green backpack.
"This was left for you by Mr. Thompson," he said, his voice formal but gentle. "He insisted it was important."
I took the backpack, feeling its weight. It was heavy, and I wondered what it could contain. The lawyer left, and I sat down on the couch, unzipping the backpack slowly. Inside, I found a stack of letters, a small key, and a note on top.