Then one afternoon, he reached for my hand. “Marry me, Camille.” I froze.
“You’re seriously ill. We barely know each other.” “I don’t want to leave this world as a nameless file in a cabinet,” he whispered.
“I want to leave it as a husband.” I sat with it all night. By morning, I already knew my answer.
Two days later, a hospital chaplain married us in that same small room.
I wore a yellow sweater. He slipped a soda can tab onto my finger, because neither of us had a ring.
Seven days later, he was gone. I sat alone in his empty room, trying to understand how someone I’d known for three weeks could leave a silence this painful behind.
