The assignment sheet on the coordinator’s desk was printed on standard white paper, but my name had been added to the top margin in pencil. It was ten minutes past nine on a Tuesday morning, and the small office smelled of stale coffee and damp coats. Sarah, our volunteer coordinator at Gentle Hands, was tapping her pen against the metal clip of her clipboard.
“The patient is Carl Reed,” Sarah said, sliding the folder toward me. “He is forty, and he specifically requested you.”
“I don’t usually take patients on the east side,” I said, keeping my hands in my lap. “And forty is very young for our hospice program.”
“He asked for a volunteer who is comfortable with quiet visits,” Sarah said, ignoring my objection. “He was very firm about that part.”
I looked down at the paper, rolling my plain gold band around my thumb, a habit from when my mother was still alive. My schedule as a hospice social worker was already full, and taking on a volunteer case meant I would have to give up three of my own afternoons every week, leaving me with almost no time to rest.
“Did he say why he wanted me?” I asked.
“No,” Sarah said, her pen finally stopping. “He only said he preferred someone who knew how to sit in a room without needing to fill the silence.”
It was a strange request from a man facing his final months, but my coordinator was waiting for an answer. The silence in the office grew heavier as she watched me.
“Three days a week,” I said, picking up the black pen and signing my name on the bottom line.
I had no way of knowing then that this single signature would unravel a thirty-year-old secret about my father, or that this dying stranger already knew my real name. I only knew that the drive to Oak Street was five miles longer than my usual route.
The blue house sat behind a low wooden fence that needed paint. The small yard was neat, though the grass had gone yellow in the late October chill. It looked like every other modest home on the street, quiet and slightly tired.
