Page 47

The woman frowns and sighs, but doesn’t argue. Once she’s out of earshot, I drag a chair next to Mr. Hank. “Who was that? Do you have a new special lady friend?”
“Nah.” He grins, waves me off as if she’s nobody. “But when a pretty girl wants to hold your hand at my age, you go along with whatever bullshit you have to.” He winks, and it makes me laugh—actually laugh—a refreshing moment after these past weeks. It makes me happy, too, that he’s mostly lucid. It’s a reminder that there’s been good in my life. “So what’s going on, missy? You look tired. Are you having trouble sleeping again?”
Did I tell him that recently, or is he referring to when I first moved to New York twenty years ago? Or maybe he thinks the trouble I had sleeping back then was last week because he’s got his years confused again. I’m not sure, but Mr. Hank is one of the few people who knows the truth about how and where I grew up. Well, not thefulltruth—not about Mr. Sawyer, but I told him about my family life at least. Alcoholism is one of the things that first bonded us. His wife died of cirrhosis of the liver a year after I moved in. “I was away,” I say. “I went to see my mother.”
His bushy brows shoot up. “You went to Louisiana?”
I take a deep breath in and blow it out. “I did.”
“How’d that go?”
“Not great. My mother is dying.”
He reaches over and covers my hand with his, gives it a squeeze. “The drink finally get her?”
I shake my head. “Cancer. Pancreatic.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“How long are thedoctors saying?”
“Not too long. A month or two.”
He nods. “You gonna go see her again?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I have a few more weeks of the summer session to finish teaching. I guess I’ll see how things are then.” I sigh and shrug, anxious to change the subject already, even though I’m the one who brought it up. So I lean and bump shoulders with him. “But tell me about you. You’re not gonna replace me as your best girl with that Ms. Parsons, are you?”
“Never.” He winks. “You’re stuck with me for life.”
Forthat, I’m truly grateful. Mr. Hank and I talk for another hour. About nothing important—the horses that ran today, the new patient who moved into the room next to his, about how he’s hoping it doesn’t snow tomorrow. I don’t remind him it’s the end of June and not January. Mostly he’s with it, and I feel lucky to have had a good visit today. Toward the end, a nurse comes by to tell him it’s almost time for lunch. He introduces me to her, calling me Molly instead of Elizabeth. Molly was his wife’s name.
“I should get going, but I’ll come back soon. And I’ll bring donuts next time.”
He points to me. “Chocolate.”
I smile. “Anything else would be criminal.” I give him a hug goodbye.
When I pull back, he clutches my arm for a second. “She loves you, even if she doesn’t say it and isn’t good at showing it.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
I assume he means becauseallmothers are supposed to love their daughters, but then he adds, “She told me.”
“My mother told you she loves me?”
He nods. “Never mentioned it because I knew how much you struggled to move on after you left.”
I don’t usually correct him, but my response slips out. “But you’ve never spokento my mother.”
“Except that once, when you were sick in the hospital for a few days.”
My heart deflates. For a moment there, I thought maybe he’dactuallyspoken to my mother. But he’s just confused again, because I’ve never been in the hospital in New York, and my mother has never once said she loved me. Not even to me. I try not to let it get me down, but it feels like a punch in the gut.
He cups my cheek. “I love you, Molly. Don’t be sad.”