I married a dying man because it was his final wish.
Ten days later, I stood beside his coffin, still wearing the wedding ring he had been too weak to place on my finger himself.
That evening, his lawyer knocked on my door carrying a leather case and a sealed envelope.
He told me Carl had made him promise not to give me anything while he was alive.
Then he said something that would change the way I understood the last six years of my life.
“He made me wait until today to tell you who he really was.”
I had no idea what he meant.
I thought I knew Carl.
I was wrong.
Three times a week, I volunteered with a hospice support program.
Most patients wanted ordinary things.
A warm meal.
Clean sheets.
Someone to sit beside them when the nights became too long.
Carl wanted to play Scrabble.
He was 40, thin from treatment, and living alone in a small house crowded with books.
On my first visit, I had barely taken off my coat when he pointed toward the Scrabble board sitting on his dining table.
“Do you know how to play?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you cheat?”
“Only when necessary.”
He studied me for a moment.
“We may get along.”
We did.
At first, my visits were simple.
I brought soup.
I washed dishes.
I made tea.
Sometimes we played Scrabble for hours, arguing over words and whether certain combinations should actually count.
Before long, Carl remembered everything I liked.
The tea I preferred.
The books I mentioned in passing.
The foods I disliked.
The small things most people forgot five minutes after hearing them.
At first, I assumed he was simply observant.
Later, I realized he was remembering.
Carl had stage-four cancer.
He never pretended his treatments were working.
