“I still don’t understand why he married me. Out of everyone he must have met in that hospital.”
He was quiet long enough that I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then: “What did Thomas ever actually ask you for?”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it carefully.”
So I did. He’d never asked for money. Never asked me to stay one hour longer than I wanted to. Never asked me to cancel a single plan, or promise him anything about the life I’d live once he was gone. Finally I said, quietly, “Nothing. He never asked me for anything.”
The attorney’s smile turned sad. “Exactly.” He opened a folder on his desk and slid a yellowed newspaper clipping toward me. In the photograph, a much younger Thomas stood outside a squat brick building, a hand-lettered sign reading COMMUNITY COUNSELING CENTER behind him. The headline read: “Local Grief Counselor Retires After Forty Years of Service.”
