Part 1:
I was convinced that saying goodbye to the man I had loved almost all my life would be the most painful thing I would ever have to go through.
I was wrong.
The real reason for Thomas’ return only became clear to me after he left.
While I was sitting alone stirring in a cup of instant coffee—something my budget barely allowed—the rain quietly knocked against the window of my small rental apartment.
At 73, I returned to the city I had left at 17. The buildings had changed, the shops had different names, and many familiar faces had disappeared.
And yet the streets somehow still remembered me.
My pension was not enough to cover the ever-increasing rent and other living expenses. So I got my old health card out of the drawer, bought a new uniform and went back to the local hospital.
It was the same profession from which I had retired years earlier.
The return felt strange.
Almost nothing was as I remembered, but everything conveyed the same feeling.
I was never married.
I have no children.
Over the years I had some relationships and met several nice men who were trying to build a life together with me.
But none of them were ever called Thomas.
I had not pronounced his name for more than fifty years.
Thomas was my first great love.
We were both seventeen when we met, young enough to believe that promises could last forever, simply because we meant them seriously when we gave them.
I had received a place at a university in another city.
Thomas had decided to stay in the city and work in his father’s iron store.
On the day I left, he stood next to me at the bus station with tears in his eyes.
“Please, Nancy, don’t go,” he begged her.
"I have to do it," I said to him. “I worked so hard not to let this opportunity pass.”
“Then you break my heart.”
These were practically his last words to me.
I got on the bus, left town and spent the next 56 years convinced I would never see him again.
The ringing of the phone tore me out of my mind.
I knew who it was before I even lost weight.
"Nancy, this is Raymond," said a cheerful voice. “I just stop by my favorite cousin.”
Favorite cousin.
Raymond and I had hardly spoken to each other in the last 30 years.
But since I moved back to town, he calls almost every week.
His voice always sounded friendly, but his questions made me nervous.
“What does the apartment look like?” he asked. “With a pension, rent is certainly hard to pay.”
“I’m fine.”
“Do you have all your documents together?” Your will? Your bank details? A single woman your age must be prepared for such things.
I tried to be polite.
“I’m fine, Raymond.” You know, I visited Aunt Margaret many times before she died. I helped her with her finances and personal affairs. Family must take care of family.
The way he said that suddenly made my coffee taste bitter.
“That was very nice of you,” I replied. “But I have to get ready for work.”
I ended the conversation before he could ask anything else.
The hospital smelled of disinfectants, medicines and this silent fear that seemed to live permanently within its walls.
That morning, I pushed my car down the long hallway and checked the room numbers and patient records.
I was already exhausted, and it was not even ten o'clock.
Room 220.
A new patient was admitted for long-term care.
I opened the door, entered and looked at the file.
Even the name made me hold my breath.
Thomas.
Then I saw the last name under it.
I tightened the file.
He could not have been.
There must have been hundreds of men with that name.
But when I looked at the patient on the bed, I recognized him immediately.
Fifty-six years had passed, but they had not been able to erase the face I remembered.
Thomas had become thinner.
His skin was pale, and the disease had left deep, dark circles under his eyes.
But it was still the same eyes that saw me get on the bus years ago.
He looked at me and smiled as if he had been waiting for me.
“Hello, Nancy,” he said quietly.
For a few seconds, I didn't say a word.
I stood next to his bed, a blood pressure monitor in my hands, feeling as if my whole life had been following me into this hospital room.
“Thomas,” I whispered at last. “Oh my God, Thomas.”
From that day on, during every shift, I found a reason to visit him in his room.
Sometimes I checked his medication.
Sometimes I would bring him water.
Sometimes, when I was done with my homework, I just sat next to him.
Thomas told me that he had never been married.
I confessed to him that I was not married either.
We laughed at our gray hair, our aching knees, and the silly dreams we once shared together.
Sometimes we also sat there in silence, making the decades that separated us seem less painful.
“Do you still drink bitter coffee?” he asked me one afternoon.
‘Yes’
“I knew that.”
His calm was unusual.
Many patients with serious illnesses were anxious, angry or overwhelmed.
Thomas remained calm.
He seemed like someone who had waited a long time for a decisive event.
One morning he asked me a thoughtful question.
"Nancy, do you have family nearby? Someone who can help you?"
He’s just a distant cousin of mine, Raymond. Since I moved back here, he calls me more often.
Thomas’ expression changed briefly.
His jaw stiffened.
Then he relaxed and quickly changed the subject.
At the time, I didn't understand why.
That same week, Raymond’s calls became even more urgent.
“Are you in a relationship?” he asked. “At your age, you should not be alone.”
“I’m fine.”
“Did you make a will?” It is important to appoint someone to take responsibility in an emergency.
“I told you, Raymond.” I'm fine.
He asked me which bank I was a customer at.
He wanted to know if I was the owner of the apartment.
He again mentioned Aunt Margaret and proudly described how she had arranged everything in her last days of life.
I remembered that Margaret had died almost destitute in a rented room.
For the first time, I wondered why this memory made me feel so unpleasant.
But I ignored my instincts.
For most of my life, I have ignored the things that made me feel uncomfortable.
One afternoon Thomas asked me to sit next to him.
His hand found mine over the ceiling.
It was a feeling of lightness and cold.
“Nancy,” he said, “I’m terribly sorry to ask you that.”
Our conversations grew more heartfelt with each passing day, but the seriousness in his voice scared me.
“Ask me.”
I have loved you all my life.
Part 2:
I was out of breath.
“I know I don’t have much time left,” he continued. “But there’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
He looked me straight in the eyes.
“Will you marry me?”
For a moment the room disappeared.
Sixty-five years of questions, regrets and mature possibilities seemed to have accumulated between us.
Part of me heard Raymond’s voice warning me that I was doing something stupid.
But another voice, the voice of the seventeen-year-old I once was, told me not to leave.
Thomas had advanced cancer.
He knew he was going to die.
That was his last wish.
“No,” I whispered.
His eyes filled with tears.
Mine too.
Yes, Thomas. I want to marry you.
He shook my hand.
You won’t regret it, Nancy. Promised.
Somehow it sounded unusual how he said that.
It seemed less like a reassuring assurance, but more like a thoughtful promise.
At the time, I thought he just meant our wedding.
I didn’t realize yet that he meant something much deeper.
The wedding took place three days later in her hospital room.
One of the nurses stood next to us as a maid of honor.
A silent man in a gray suit introduced himself as Walter, Thomas’ lawyer.
I found it unusual for a lawyer to attend such an intimate ceremony.
But Thomas took my hand, and I repressed that thought.
His eyes sparkled as he made his marriage vow.
I too.
After the ceremony, Walter opened a leather briefcase and placed a folder on the small side table next to Thomas’ bed.
“Some documents require your signature,” he explained. “Take your time.”
It didn't take long.
I trusted Thomas completely.
Every time Walter pointed to a line, I signed.
In the evening I told Raymond what had happened.
His reaction was not long in coming.
“Have you gone completely crazy?” she cried into the phone. “You’re married to a dying man you barely know?”
“I’ve known Thomas longer than you.”
“They manipulate you,” Raymond urged her. A stranger sees an elderly nurse with pension and persuades her to marry him. You must annul the marriage immediately.
‘No’
“Nancy, you don’t know what you did.”
“I totally understand.”
I ended the conversation. A month later, Thomas died.
He died peacefully early in the morning, my hand firmly in his.
The pain was much more intense than I expected.
We had only spent a few weeks together, but somehow those few weeks contained all the love and longing of the fifty-six years we had lost.
The funeral was in a small circle.
I stopped for a moment at his grave and finally allowed myself to cry.
Raymond was there, of course.
He waited until most of them left before he came to me.
“You know I’m your only living family member,” he said, straightening his tie. “Family matters should be regulated internally.”
I said nothing.
Older people shouldn’t sign documents they don’t understand.
“I understood everything Thomas told me.”
Raymond smiled at me faintly. I helped Aunt Margaret in all her tasks. She was very grateful to me for that.
I had a cold chill running down my back.
I remembered how Thomas’ expression changed every time I mentioned Raymond’s name.
“I have to go home,” I said.
“We will speak soon,” Raymond replied. “We need to talk about your finances.”
I left without answering.
The next morning there was a knock on my apartment door.
When I opened, Walter stood outside with a small wooden box under his arm.
“Can I come in?”
I stepped aside.
He put the box on my coffee table and sat opposite me.
“Thomas told me to leave it the morning after his funeral,” Walter explained. “Not sooner.”
I stared at him.
Walter continued:
‘ I also sent an official message to Raymond this morning. I tell him that your finances and future care will now be managed by a trust fund.
“What are you talking about?”
Walter smiled friendly.
Thomas was right. You fell right into his trap.
My hands began to tremble.
Walter drew a folded letter from his coat.
“Thomas asked me to read it exactly as he wrote it.”
He opened the page.
Dear Nancy, please forgive me. I set a trap, but you were not the one I wanted to catch.
I clung to the edge of the table.
Walter looked at me.
“The documents you signed after the wedding involved much more than just accepting Thomas’ legacy.”
He explained that in one document a trust fund had been set up that was completely filled with Thomas’ assets and savings.
Walter was commissioned to manage it on my behalf.
Another document gave Walter the legal authority to regulate my financial and medical matters if I could no longer decide for myself. “Raymond has no powers whatsoever,” Walter said. He cannot pressure you to give up your money or possessions. All important documents must first be reviewed by the trustee.
He put his hand on the wooden box.
That was Thomas’ trap. He has built a legal wall around you so no one can take advantage of you.
Walter pushed the box onto the table.
My fingers trembled as I touched the little brass lock.
I thought of Raymond’s questions.
I thought of his interest in my bank accounts and my will.
Then I had to think back to Thomas’ last promise.
I opened the lid.
It contained the title deed for Thomas’s parents’ house.
Among them were legal documents of a trust fund, which were in my name.
But that wasn't what made me so speechless.
Part 3:
Under the papers lay a large bundle of letters, carefully tied together with a string.
There were forty-five letters.
Almost every year that Thomas and I were separated, one was ahead of us.
There was a handwritten message on it.
I put my hand in front of my mouth, tears poured down my cheeks.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“Read the message,” Wal said.
