I got on the bus, left the city, and spent the next fifty-six years believing I would never see him again.
The sound of the telephone pulled me from my reverie.
I knew who it was before I answered.
—Nancy, it's Raymond— said a cheerful voice. —I've come to see how my favorite cousin is doing.
Favorite cousin.
Raymond and I had barely spoken in thirty years.
But since I returned to the city, he started calling me almost every week.
Her voice was always kind, but her questions made me uncomfortable.
"How's the apartment?" he asked. "The rent must be hard to pay on a pension."
“I’m handling it.”
“Have you organized your documents? Your will? Your bank information? A woman living alone at your age needs to prepare for these things.”
I made an effort to maintain a polite tone of voice.
“I’m fine, Raymond.”
“You know, I used to visit Aunt Margaret very often before she passed away. I helped her with her finances and personal affairs. Family must take care of family.”
Something about the way he said it made my coffee suddenly taste bitter.
"That was very kind of you," I replied. "But I have to get ready for work."
I ended the call before I could ask anything else.
The hospital smelled of disinfectant, medicine, and the silent anxiety that seemed to permanently inhabit its walls.
That morning, I pushed my cart down the long corridor, checking the room numbers and the patients' medical records.
I was already exhausted, and it wasn't even ten o'clock yet.
Room 220.
A new patient had been admitted for long-term care.
I opened the door, went inside, and glanced at the chart.
The first name took my breath away.
Thomas.
Then I saw the last name underneath.
I gripped the file tightly with my hands.
It couldn't be him.
There must have been hundreds of men with that name.
But when I looked up at the patient lying in bed, I recognized him immediately.
Fifty-six years had passed, but they had not erased the face he remembered.
Thomas was thinner now.
Her skin was pale, and the illness had left her with deep dark circles under her eyes.
However, those eyes were still the same ones that had seen me get on a bus so many years ago.
He looked at me and smiled as if he had been waiting for me.
"Hello, Nancy," he said softly.
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
I stood by his bed, holding a blood pressure monitor, with the feeling that my whole life had followed me to that hospital room.
"Thomas," I finally whispered. "Oh my God! Thomas!"
After that day, I found reasons to visit his room during every shift.
Sometimes he checked his medication.
Sometimes I would bring him water.
Sometimes, I would simply sit next to him after I finished my chores.
Thomas told me that he had never been married.
I confessed that I hadn't gotten married either.
We laughed at our gray hair, our knee pain, and the silly dreams we once shared.
Other times, we would sit in silence, so comfortable that the decades that separated us seemed less important.
"Are you still drinking your coffee black?" he asked one afternoon.
