whispered.
My heart started pounding.
“Thomas…
you’re seriously ill.
We barely know each other.”
“I don’t want the state handling my final hours,” he said, holding my fingers.
“My last wish is to leave this world as a husband, not as a nameless file.”
I knew how strange the request was.
Still, two days later, a hospital chaplain married us.
I wore a yellow sweater.
We didn’t have a wedding ring, so Thomas slipped a soda can pull tab onto my finger instead.
For the next seven days, I never left his side.
I held his hand through every difficult breath until his heart stopped.
Afterward, I sat alone in his empty room, stunned by how much silence someone I’d known for such a short time could leave behind.
Then an elderly man stepped in carrying a green backpack.
“Sarah?” he asked.
“I’m your husband’s attorney.
He left this backpack
