“It was excellent.”
“It was four pages.”
“Four excellent pages.”
Lucas laughed softly.
The sound changed something in the room.
For a moment, the mystery loosened its grip.
I saw Douglas again.
Not the dying man.
Not the boy frozen in my memory.
The whole person between them.
The seventeen-year-old who taught me how to drive a stick shift.
The nineteen-year-old who bought a ring and never gave it to me.
The husband who stayed beside his sick wife.
The father whose son was sitting across from me.
The man who had remembered every birthday.
I moved closer to the bed.
“What do the doctors say?”
Lucas looked down.
Douglas answered.
“Not enough time.”
My chest tightened.
“How much?”
He gave a tiny shrug.
“Days. Maybe less.”
I reached for his hand.
“You couldn’t call me sooner?”
“I didn’t know where you were.”
“You said you searched.”
“For years.”
