Chapter 4 - The Vows and the Void
For one brief, beautiful month, I was Thomas’s wife. I moved into the hospital room permanently, sleeping on a cot beside him. We spent our honeymoon sharing quiet secrets in the dark. He told me about his regrets, the heavy burden of his wealth, and the family members who only saw him as a bank account. I told him about the patients I had lost, the loneliness of the city, and how I always looked for his face in a crowd. We laughed until we coughed, and we cried when the pain medication wasn't enough. It was the most exhausting and rewarding month of my existence. But love cannot stop the march of time, nor can it cure a failing body. On a quiet Tuesday morning, just before the sun rose, his breathing changed. I held him close, resting my head on his chest, listening as his heartbeat slowed. He kissed my forehead one last time. And then, the monitor flatlined into a long, terrible wail. Thomas passed away, leaving me stranded on the shores of grief. I thought I had prepared myself for the loss. As a nurse, I had seen death a thousand times; I knew its face well. But I had not prepared for this death. My heart broke entirely, shattering into jagged, unfixable pieces. I felt as though I were seventeen again, standing alone at that bus station, watching the only boy I ever loved disappear from my life forever. The funeral was a lavish, cold affair. Hundreds of people attended—business partners, politicians, and estranged relatives wearing expensive black suits. None of them offered me condolences; they only offered me glares of suspicion. I stood by his grave, a seventy-three-year-old widow who had been a wife for thirty days. I returned to my small, empty apartment, wrapping myself in his old jacket. I thought the story was over. I thought I would simply fade away, living on my memories. I was terribly, terribly wrong.
