I stood beside his bed holding a blood pressure cuff, feeling as if my entire life had followed me into that hospital room.
“Thomas,” I finally whispered. “Oh my goodness. Thomas.”
After that day, I found reasons to visit his room during every shift.
Sometimes I checked his medication.
Sometimes I brought him water.
Sometimes I simply sat beside him after my duties were finished.
Thomas told me he had never married.
I confessed that I had not married either.
We laughed about our gray hair, our aching knees, and the foolish dreams we had once shared.
Other times, we sat in silence, comfortable in a way that made the lost decades between us feel smaller.
“You still drink your coffee black?” he asked one afternoon.
“I do.”
