I thought saying goodbye to the love of my life would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to do. I had no idea that the real reason he came back into my life wouldn’t be revealed until after he was gone.

The rain pattered gently against the living room window of my small rented apartment, and I sat there stirring instant coffee that, in truth, I couldn’t afford. At 73, back in the town I’d left at 17, the streets outside seemed to know my footsteps better than I did myself.

My pension wasn’t enough to live on, so I put my old nurse’s badge on a new uniform and went back to work at the local hospital. It was the same job I did before I retired.

My pension wasn’t enough for much.

It’s strange, going back home. Nothing seemed the same, but everything felt the same to me.

I hadn’t married or had children. I’d dated over the years, some nice men, but none of them turned out to be Thomas.

Thomas. He hadn’t said his name out loud in over 50 years.

Nothing seemed the same.

He was my first love, when we were both 17 and thought “forever” was a promise you could just make. I chose a university in another city. He decided to stay and work in his father’s business.

“Please don’t go, Nancy,” Thomas had pleaded with me at the bus station.

“I have to go, darling. I’ve worked so hard for this.”

“Then you’re breaking my heart.”

And that was the last time I saw him. Or so I thought.

“Please don’t go, Nancy.”

***

The phone rang, bringing me back to the present. I already knew who it was even before I answered.

“Nancy, darling, it’s Raymond. I just wanted to know how you are, my favorite cousin.”

My favorite cousin. We’d barely spoken in thirty years. But since I moved back here, Raymond called me almost every week, always cheerful, always going over the same questions.

I already knew who he was.

“How’s it going in the apartment? Renting is a luxury at our age, isn’t it?” she said.

“I’ll manage, Raymond.”

“Do you have everything in order? The paperwork, the will, that kind of thing? A woman who lives alone has to be careful.”

I made an effort to smile with my voice.

“I’m fine, darling. Really.”

“You know, I used to visit Aunt Margaret every week before she passed away. I helped her with all her affairs. Family should look out for each other, don’t you think?”

“I’ll manage, Raymond.”

There was something about the way he said it that made my coffee taste bitter. I couldn’t figure out why.

“That’s very kind of you, Raymond. I have to hang up. My shift starts soon.”

I hung up before he could prolong the call any further.

***

The hospital corridor smelled like hospital corridors always do: of disinfectant and the quiet concern of the people inside. I pushed my cart down the corridor, checking the room numbers, already tired, and it wasn’t even 10 a.m. yet.

“I have to go”.

Room 220. New admission. Long-term care.

I pushed open the door, went in, and opened the medical record as I always did. My eyes scanned the first line and then stopped.

Thomas.

I stared at the surname printed below. My mouth went dry. It couldn’t be. There had to be a thousand men with that name in this state alone.

I pushed the door open.

When I looked up at the man who was in bed.

I recognized him as soon as I looked up from the card.

Fifty-six years hadn’t erased that face. Thomas was thinner, paler, haggard from whatever was consuming him from the inside, but those eyes were the same ones that had begged me to stay when we were teenagers.

She smiled as if she had been waiting for me.

I recognized him as soon as I looked up.

“Hello, Nancy,” he said, in a voice as soft as a Sunday morning.

I couldn’t say anything for a moment. I stood there with the blood pressure cuff in my hand, feeling my whole life crashing down on me in a hospital room.

“Thomas,” I finally managed to say. “My God! Thomas!”

***

From then on, he would look for any excuse to go and see how she was doing on every shift.

I was speechless for a moment.

My high school boyfriend told me that he had never been married either.

We laughed at our gray hair and our aching knees, and sometimes we didn’t even talk. We just sat together.

“Are you still drinking your coffee black?” he asked me one afternoon.

“Yes, same.”

“I already suspected as much.”

There was something odd about how calm he was. Most patients in his condition were angry, scared, or dazed. Thomas seemed almost at peace, like a man who had been holding his breath for a long time and could finally let it out.

She had never been married.

***

One morning, Thomas asked me, as carefully as someone treading on thin ice: “Do you have family nearby, Nancy? Anyone who cares about you?”

“Just a distant cousin. Raymond. He’s been calling me more often lately.”

Thomas clenched his jaw, just for a second. Then he relaxed and changed the subject to talk about the weather.

At the time I didn’t think much of it.

“Do you have family nearby?”

***

Raymond’s calls became rarer that same week.

“Are you seeing anyone, Nancy? At your age, you shouldn’t be alone. Families should support each other.”

“I’m fine, Raymond.”

“Have you thought about making a will? I don’t even want to think about it, but you know. You should name someone responsible.”

“I’ve already told you I’m fine.”

He asked me about my bank account and the apartment. He brought up Aunt Margaret again and how he’d “helped her with everything” at the end. I remembered that Margaret had died alone in a rented room, and I couldn’t understand why I disliked her so much.

Are you seeing anyone?

I acted like nothing was wrong. I always acted like nothing was wrong. That was my whole life in one sentence.

***

Then came the afternoon.

Thomas asked me to sit down.

Her hand found mine on the blanket. It was cold and light like a bird.

“Honey,” she told me, “I feel really bad for asking you this.”

By then, our conversations had grown warmer with each passing day.

“Ask me.”

And the afternoon arrived.

“I’ve loved you all my life. I know I’m going to die soon. But I’ve always dreamed of marrying you. Will you marry me? It’s my last wish.”

She could barely breathe. She couldn’t even blink.

Fifty-six years of “what if…?” and there he was, emaciated and dying in a hospital bed, asking me the one question I had never dared to imagine.

A voice in my head that sounded exactly like Raymond’s said, “You silly old woman, don’t you dare!”

And another voice, the one I had silenced at 17, told me: “Say yes! For once in your life, say yes!”

“I have loved you all my life.”

Thomas had stage 4 cancer. I decided I would grant him his last wish.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Thomas, yes.”

Her eyes filled with tears. Mine did too.

“You won’t regret it,” he said. “I promise you, Nancy. I swear on my life, you won’t regret it.”

At that moment I didn’t understand why he had said it like that, as a vow that meant more than the wedding itself.

All I understood was that I had just agreed to marry a dying man; my hands were shaking uncontrollably, and somewhere in the city, Raymond was probably already dialing my number.

She was going to fulfill his last wish.

***

The wedding took place three days later, right there in Thomas’s hospital room.

A nurse acted as a witness, as did a quiet man in a gray suit who introduced himself as Walter, Thomas’s lawyer.

It seemed a little strange to have a lawyer at a wedding next to a hospital bed. But my high school sweetheart squeezed my hand and I stopped dwelling on it.

Her eyes sparkled as she uttered her vows. Mine did too.

I thought it was a little strange.

***

After the small ceremony, Walter took a folder out of his briefcase and placed it on the small table with wheels.

“It’s just some paperwork, Nancy,” he told me kindly. “The usual. Take your time.”

I didn’t take my time. I signed each one exactly where he told me to, trusting Thomas like you trust the sun to rise.

***

That night, my phone rang. It was Raymond again.

“Have you gone mad?!” she exclaimed when I told her about the marriage. “Marrying a dying man you barely know?!”

“Take your time.”

“I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you,” I said in a low voice.

“Nancy, listen to me. You’re being manipulated. A stranger sees an elderly nurse with a pension, tells you a tearful story, and you believe it? Annul the marriage! Today!”

“No, I won’t.”

“You silly woman! Don’t you realize what you’re doing!”

I hung up.

“They’re manipulating you.”

***

A month later, Thomas was gone.

She passed away early this morning, peacefully, with my hand in hers. The grief hit me harder than I expected, considering we’d only spent a few weeks together. But sometimes a few weeks can hold almost six decades.

The funeral was intimate. I stayed by the grave and let myself cry.

Raymond showed up, of course.

He waited until the others had started heading towards their cars before approaching.

Thomas was no longer there.

“You know I’m your only living relative,” he said, adjusting his tie. “Family should look after family. Silly old women shouldn’t sign papers they don’t understand, Nancy.”

“I understood every word Thomas said to me.”

She gave me a faint smile. “I helped Aunt Margaret with everything in the end. With everything. She thanked me for it.”

A chill ran through me. I remembered how Thomas’s jaw would tense up whenever Raymond’s name came up.

“The family must take care of the family.”

“I have to go home, Raymond.”

“We’ll talk soon,” he said. “About your business.”

I walked towards my car without answering.

***

The next morning, someone knocked on my door.

I opened the door and found Walter, who was carrying a small wooden box under his arm. He gave me the same calm smile he had worn at the wedding.

“We’ll talk soon.”

“Can I come in?”

I stepped aside. He placed the box on the living room table and clasped his hands.

“Thomas asked me to give this to you the day after his funeral. Not before. I also sent a formal letter to Raymond this morning, notifying him, as your next of kin, that your affairs are in trust. He will receive it before noon.”

“What?” I asked.

Walter smiled. “Thomas was right. You’ve finally fallen right into his trap.”

“Can I come in?”

I sat down. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

Walter took a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. “Thomas left instructions that I must read exactly as he wrote them.”

The lawyer smoothed the sheet and read softly, in a voice that didn’t sound like his own.

“My dear Nancy, forgive me, but I set a trap, and it was never my intention that you would be the one to fall into it.”

My breath caught in my throat. I grabbed the edge of the table.

My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

Walter looked up.

“Those papers you signed at the wedding weren’t just to accept what Thomas left you. One was a new will establishing a discretionary trust, which I administer, funded entirely by Thomas’s estate for your support. The other was a durable power of attorney. You named me, not Raymond, to handle your affairs should you ever be unable to do so.”

The lawyer cleared his throat before continuing.

“One was a new testament.”

“And the third was your acceptance of the trust’s terms. Raymond can’t pressure you into signing anything binding again, Nancy. Any document that has to do with your money or your care goes through me first, at your request. That was Thomas’s trap. A circle of lawyers around you, so that no one like Raymond can ever slip a piece of paper under your hand.”

Then he slid the box across the table towards me while my hands trembled.

The wood was smooth to the touch. It had a small brass latch.

“That was Thomas’s trap.”

I thought of Raymond’s cold smile by the grave. I thought of Thomas’s bright eyes.

I lifted the lid.

And what I saw inside almost made me scream!

I put my hand to my mouth and burst into tears.

Inside was a folded deed to Thomas’s family home, documents for a trust in my name, and a good-sized bundle of letters tied with string. Fifty-five. One for each year he hadn’t written to me, every year until the one that finally brought me back to him.

I lifted the lid.

On top was a handwritten note in his neat handwriting.

I looked up at Walter, with a lump in my throat and tears sliding down my cheeks.

“I don’t understand”.

“Read it, Nancy. I wanted you to hear it in her own words.”

Thomas had written that Aunt Margaret had been a customer of his father’s hardware store for 40 years, and also a friend.

“I don’t understand”.

He had tried to warn her that Raymond was taking money from her accounts when it slipped out by mistake, but she wouldn’t hear a word against her nephew. When she died and Raymond became even richer, Thomas continued to keep an eye on him.

So when he found out that I had moved again and accepted the nursing job, with Raymond lurking nearby, he asked to be transferred to my ward.

“He knew,” I whispered. “Did he know what Raymond was planning to do to me?”

I had tried to warn him.

“Yes. That’s why the wedding was held when it was held, that’s why I was there, and that’s why he asked you to sign those papers.”

I pressed the note to my chest. I hadn’t spoken her name aloud in years, and now it was the only name that mattered.

“The trap wasn’t for me.”

“No, Nancy. It was for Raymond. Thomas made you his legal wife so that no one could ever touch what he left you. It’s foolproof.”

I pressed the note to my chest.

***

Raymond came banging on my door three days later, his face red, threatening me with lawyers and undue influence.

Walter, who used to visit me often, was sitting at my kitchen table at that very moment drinking tea.

“All the documents are irrefutable,” my lawyer calmly told Raymond. “Challenge them if you want. You’ll lose and you’ll have to pay the costs.”

My cousin stared at me as if he were looking at a stranger.

“You silly old woman!”

“All the documents are irrefutable.”

“No, Raymond. I am a woman who was loved. There is a difference.”

He left without saying anything else.

***

I moved into Thomas’s old house that spring. Every Sunday morning, I would open a letter and read it slowly while drinking coffee.

Love hadn’t passed me by. I had waited 56 years, and even as it left, it had embraced me one last time.