Afterwards, people drifted out with quiet congratulations.
Someone brought a grocery store cake.
Ben dozed with my hand in his, and I sat watching the slow rise and fall of his chest.
I was memorizing him the way you memorize a song you're about to lose.
I finally slipped out to find coffee.
That was when a nurse caught my elbow in the hallway and told me something shocking.
I was memorizing him
She was young, maybe my age, with tired eyes.
She glanced toward Room 407, then back at me, and lowered her voice.
"Don't tell him I told you this."
"Told me what?"
"Before you leave tonight," she whispered, "look under his mattress."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Look under his mattress."
"He's lying to you. He and the doctor. They have a plan." Her hand tightened on my sleeve. "He doesn't know I've seen it."
Then she was gone, swallowed by the fluorescent hum of the corridor.
As if she had never existed at all.
I stood there with a paper cup of vending machine coffee, my new ring cold against my finger, trying to breathe.
Then I turned back toward Room 407.
"He's lying to you."
I forced a bride's smile onto my face.
But I couldn't stop wondering what on earth my childhood sweetheart had hidden beneath his hospital bed.
Ben smiled the second he saw me.
"There you are."
"I got lost looking for coffee," I lied.
I forced a bride's smile onto my face.
"You always get lost."
