I actually laughed.
Then I realized he wasn’t joking.
“Bennett, you’re seventy-two.”
“And you’re twenty-nine.”
“You’re dying.”
“I know.”
“We barely know each other.”
He looked toward the window.
“I’ve spent most of my life being somebody’s husband, somebody’s father, somebody’s employer.”
He swallowed.
“But I don’t want to die as a name on a hospital chart.”
His fingers tightened around mine.
“I want one person beside me who knows me as Bennett.”
I didn’t sleep that night.
By morning, I’d made my decision.
Two days later, a hospital chaplain married us.
I wore a yellow sweater.
Bennett didn’t have a ring.
So he slipped a soda-can tab onto my finger.
“Temporary,” he whispered.
I smiled.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Seven days later, he died.
Quietly.
Holding my hand.
And somehow, a man I’d known for only three weeks had left behind a silence that felt enormous.
I sat beside his empty hospital bed, crying, when someone knocked
An older man entered carrying a worn green backpack.
“Camille?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Gerald Okafor. I’m Bennett’s attorney.”
He placed the backpack on my lap.
It was incredibly heavy.
I looked at him.
“What’s inside?”
Gerald didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he locked the hospital room door.
My stomach tightened.
“Why did you lock the door?”
He sat across from me.
“Because Bennett was afraid someone might come looking for this.”
My heart began pounding.
“Who?”
Gerald stared directly into my eyes.
“His son.”
I froze.
“His son
“Bennett never told you about Desmond?”
“
Gerald sighed.
“Then there’s something you need to understand.”
He pointed toward the backpack.
“Be
I opened the zipper.
Inside were envelopes.
Dozens of them.
Some were twenty years old.
Some were dated only months earlier.
Every envelope had the same name written across the front.
DESMOND COLE.
I looked up.
“Why didn’t Bennett send these?”
Gerald’s expression changed.
“Because Desmond returned every letter his father ever sent him.”
I stared at the envelopes.
Then Gerald said something that made my blood run cold.
“There’s one more thing Bennett didn’t tell you.”
“What?”
“He didn’t actually ask you to marry him because he was afraid of dying alone.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Then why?”
Gerald leaned forward.
“Because he knew he was dying, and he wanted to fix something before he did.”
