He looked toward the table.
“My wife used to set the table like that. Even when it was only the two of us.”
“Then let’s eat like that.”
We sat together.
He told me about his wife.
How they had met at a roller rink in 1961.
How she had knocked him down on their very first lap.
He laughed as he told the story.
Then he admitted it was the first time he had laughed in months.
When lunch was over, he reached for the plates.
I placed my hand over his.
“Leave those.”
He looked at me.
“I have something I want to show you next Thursday.”
“What?”
“A shoebox. It has some old notes in it. Some drawings. And a story about a woman named Rose.”
He smiled back at me.
“Thursday?”
“Thursday.”
Before I left, I stopped beside his hall table.
I found a pen and wrote:
Mr. Dean — Your tomato plants looked thirsty. I watered them. See you Thursday.
I started walking away.
Then I turned back and added one final line.
Something I had once written on a hospital napkin without ever realizing someone would remember it.
You’re not alone.
