I couldn’t talk anymore. I just put my head down on the edge of her bed and cried.
I don’t know how long we stayed in that room. Hours. The rain stopped sometime around noon. The clouds broke up a little, and a thin stripe of sunlight came through the little square window and lay across the foot of Ruth’s bed.
Dr. Hale came in and sat in the chair by the door. He didn’t say much. But at one point, Ruth looked over at him. A long look. A look that held fifty-one years in it.
“You stayed, Tommy,” she said.
“I stayed,” he said.
“I always knew you were in the building. Every time I came back here. For my checkups. For Catherine’s tonsils. For Daddy’s heart surgery. I always knew you were here somewhere.” She smiled weakly. “It made me feel safe.”
