Thomas turned his head toward me, his eyes pale blue and clear despite the shadow of his illness.
A small, slow smile touched the corners of his mouth, and he raised his right hand slightly from the bed sheet.
His index finger began to tap rhythmically against the silver metal of the hospital bed railing.
“Nancy,” he said, his voice a soft, raspy whisper that seemed to come from deep within his chest. “You haven’t changed your hair since the summer of sixty-seven.”
My hands shook as I reached for the black rubber bulb of the blood pressure cuff, my fingers losing their grip for a second before I could secure the velcro strap around his arm.
The boy I had left behind in the tall grass behind the high school was looking back at me through the eyes of the dying man in Room Two Twenty.
“Your blood pressure is one hundred and thirty over eighty,” I said, my voice steadier than my hand.
