Then Ray started getting tired.
“Jesus, Hannah,” Ray panicked. “You hate basil?”
“It’s perfect,” I sobbed.
He looked away. “Yeah, well. Try not to kill it.”
Then Ray started getting tired.
At first, he just moved slower.
He’d sit halfway up the stairs to catch his breath. Forget his keys. Burn dinner twice in a week.
Between her nagging and my begging, he went.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Getting old.”
He was 53.
Mrs. Patel cornered him in the driveway.
“You see a doctor,” she ordered. “Don’t be stupid.”
Between her nagging and my begging, he went.
After the tests, he sat at the kitchen table, papers under his hand.
“Stage four. It’s everywhere.”
“What did they say?” I asked.
He stared past me. “Stage four. It’s everywhere.”
“How long?” I whispered.
He shrugged. “They said numbers. I stopped listening.”
He tried to keep things the same.
He still made my eggs, even when his hand shook. He still brushed my hair, though sometimes he had to stop and lean on the dresser, breathing hard.
Hospice came.
At night, I heard him retching in the bathroom, then running the faucet.
Hospice came.
A nurse named Jamie set up a bed in the living room. Machines hummed. Medication charts went on the fridge.
The night before he died, he told everyone to leave.
“Even me?” Jamie asked.
“You know you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Even you.”
He shuffled into my room and eased into the chair by my bed.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said.
“Hey,” I said, already crying.
He took my hand. “You know you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, right?”
“That’s kind of sad,” I joked weakly.
“You’re gonna live.”
He huffed a laugh. “Still true.”
“I don’t know what to do without you,” I whispered.
His eyes went shiny. “You’re gonna live. You hear me? You’re gonna live.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know,” he said. “Me too.”
“For things I should’ve told you.”
He opened his mouth like he wanted to say more, then just shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“For what?”
“For things I should’ve told you.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Get some sleep, Hannah.”
He died the following morning.
The funeral was black clothes, bad coffee, and people saying, “He was a good man,” like that covered everything.
“Your uncle asked me to give you this.”
Back at the house, it felt wrong.
Ray’s boots by the door. His mug in the sink. The basil drooping in the window.
That afternoon, Mrs. Patel knocked and came in. She sat on my bed, eyes red, and held out an envelope.
“Your uncle asked me to give you this,” she said. “And to tell you he’s sorry. And that… I am too.”
“Sorry for what?” I asked.
Several pages slid into my lap.
She shook her head. “You read it, beta. Then call me.”
My name was on the envelope in his blunt handwriting.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Several pages slid into my lap.
The first line said: “Hannah, I’ve been lying to you your whole life. I can’t take this with me.”
He wrote about the night of the crash. Not the version I knew.
My chest tightened.
He wrote about the night of the crash. Not the version I knew. He said my parents brought my overnight bag. Told him they were moving, “fresh start,” new city.
“They said they weren’t taking you,” he wrote. “Said you’d be better off with me because they were a mess. I lost it.”
He wrote what he’d screamed. That my dad was a coward. That my mom was selfish.
That they were abandoning me.
