I married a stranger from a hospital waiting room so he wouldn’t die alone — after our one-week marriage, his lawyer handed me his backpack, saying, “He wanted you to know the truth.”
I was twenty-nine. Still barely functioning after losing my mom. Volunteering at the hospital was the only thing that made the grief feel useful.
That’s how I met Bennett. Seventy-two years old. Heart failure. Nobody ever came to see him.
We started talking every day. Within days, those conversations became the best part of my routine too.
He told me about the company he built. The garden he left behind. A wife he lost decades ago — Eleanor.
