“Five minutes.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Generous.”
I stayed twelve.
At the time, twelve minutes felt insignificant.
Later, I understood those twelve minutes were probably worth more to Larry than everything else I carried through that hospice door.
Exactly three weeks after our courthouse wedding, I sat beside his bed as his breathing slowed.
Then stopped.
I held his hand until the nurse quietly told me he was gone.
And because I believed the story Larry had told me, I handled everything afterward exactly as he had hoped.
His death certificate.
The funeral.
His few belongings.
His final paperwork.
I stood there as his wife and made sure Larry left the world with someone saying his name.
I thought that was why he had married me.
Until the letter arrived.
Part 4 — “Ask for Margaret”
I returned to the letter.
Larry had written:
If I gave you a problem you could fix, I knew you would fix it.
That sentence hurt more than the lie itself.
Because he was right.
Over two years, Larry had watched me respond to everything with solutions.
Cold?
Find a shelter.
Hungry?
Buy food.
Shoes worn through?
Replace them.
No phone?
Find a charger.
Bad weather?
Call outreach programs until somebody answered.
I had spent so much time trying to improve Larry’s circumstances that I had never considered what he might have learned about me in return.
He knew exactly which version of his need I would understand.
A bureaucratic problem.
A legal problem.
A dying man afraid his body would be mishandled.
Those things could be solved.
Loneliness was harder.
At the bottom of the first page, Larry had written:
Before you decide what kind of fool I was, go back to the courthouse. Ask for Margaret. Tell her you were my wife.
I almost threw the letter away.
For an hour, I paced my apartment.
I was angry.
Embarrassed.
Heartbroken.
Part of me felt manipulated.
Another part needed to know what Larry had believed was important enough to send me back there after his death.
So I went.
The courthouse looked exactly the same as it had three weeks earlier.
Couples sat in rows of plastic chairs.
A bride in a white jumpsuit checked her lipstick while her fiancé held a bouquet.
A toddler crawled beneath chairs while his father tried to catch him.
Life was happening everywhere.
Weddings beginning.
Names being joined.
Promises being made.
And suddenly I remembered Larry sitting in that same waiting area rubbing his palms against his pants.
“You’re shaking,” I had said.
“I’m dying. I’m allowed.”
Standing there now, I wondered if illness had caused those nerves at all.
At the records desk, I asked for Margaret.
An older woman wearing bright red glasses looked up from her computer.
“Yes?”
“My name is Sarah.”
She waited.
