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Why did hospitals always have to smell like pureed meatloaf slathered in sanitizer? Matt stepped off the elevator behind one of the hospital kitchen workers pushing a food cart and wrinkled his nose. No wonder his grandpa never had an appetite.

The wheels of the cart rumbled down the hallway the same direction Matt headed—the long-term care floor where his grandpa resided.

Matt hated that they hadn’t been able to find Buck a better location after his physical therapy ended and insurance stopped paying for the inpatient rehab facility. At least somewhere outside the walls of a hospital.

But between Buck’s continued weakening state, worsening COPD, and ongoing dialysis sessions three days a week, Mom and Aunt Gracie’s choices had been limited when it came to finding him a place that could provide him with the level of care he needed without taking him too far from home.

So Haviland-Harrison Hospital it was. The building wasn’t much to look at, but the hospital had been plugging away for more than a century on the outskirts of Alda, providing healthcare to all the surrounding communities in their rural area.

Not exactly the homiest of places for Buck to spend his final days. But it was the best option they had. The only option they had.

Sort of like when Matt called Noah the other day.

So maybe that wasn’t the smartest move, going behind Aunt Gracie’s back like that, offering her rental to Noah. But somebody had to do something . And not just in regard to helping Aunt Gracie get back on her feet. Something about Gracie and Noah’s crumbled marriage. Matt wasn’t sure what had happened between them, but he’d never stopped believing that they belonged together.

The way Matt saw it, there were only two ways this forced reunion of theirs could end—a passionate reconciliation that led to the renewal of their vows... or a double homicide.

Matt prayed for reconciliation.

Matt slipped into his grandpa’s room, stepping past his grandpa’s roommate, Shorty, with a wave before he caught himself. “Sorry,” he said, then wanted to smack himself. Shorty was blind. He felt doubly stupid for waving, then apologizing.

Shorty grinned and waved back—somehow aware Matt did this every time he visited—before adjusting his radio, which was always on sports, whether it be high school, college, or professional. This evening it sounded like the local high school football game.

“You don’t need to turn it down,” Matt said.

Shorty shrugged and offered his typical response. “Nothing too exciting happening right now anyway.” Shorty sat on the side of the bed with his hands clasped in his lap, dressed in a pair of clean but worn blue jeans, the left pant leg rolled up to accommodate his below-the-knee amputation. The blue-and-gray plaid button-up shirt looked big on his slender frame.

“Matt, that you?” Buck’s groggy voice carried past the plastic curtain separating the two beds. He must’ve just woken up from a nap. “You’re just in time to finish my sponge bath.”

Shorty shook his head. “You need some new jokes, old man.”

“Who you calling old, Shorty?”

“Who you calling short, Oldie?”

“Break it up, you two,” Matt said, pointing a finger at each of them as he pushed back the curtain all the way to the wall, “before I call Nurse Ratched in here.”

Both men pretended to shiver. “No need to get all nasty,” Shorty murmured.

“The only nurse I know who gives a sponge bath without wetting the sponge,” Buck said with another dramatic shiver.

The old-school nurse who never came to work without her white-skirted uniform, white hose, and white shoes was one of their favorite topics of conversation. Mostly because each of them knew beneath all that starch and antiseptic, the woman had a heart of gold. Maybe. Matt hadn’t actually witnessed it yet.

“Hello, boys.” And here she stood now. Both his grandpa and Shorty turned rigid. Matt straightened like a soldier at attention.

“Matthew,” her cold voice sliced through the room.

“Nurse Ratch—uh...Wanda. Nurse Wanda. Just Wanda. Not Nurse Wanda. I don’t know why I said Nurse Wanda even though you are a nurse so why not say Nurse Wanda?”

“Nobody calls me Nurse Wanda.”

“And neither will I.”

Wearing her white uniform that fell beneath her knees and shoes that squeaked with each step, Wanda clutched her ever-present clipboard against her chest and glared through her narrow spectacles. “I trust you boys are all behaving yourselves.”

“Yes, ma’am,” all three replied in unison.

“Shorty, did you remember to drink your prune juice this evening? We all know what happens when you forget to drink your prune juice.”

Shorty fumbled with the tray next to his bed and rattled an empty juice can back and forth. “All of it.”

Wanda nodded once. The scent of rubbing alcohol wafted off her as she stepped past Matt. He wondered if she dabbed it behind her ears like perfume every morning.

“And you, Buck?”

Buck smiled like a student trying to please his teacher. “I finished my prune juice first thing this morning, ma’am.”

Her left brow slanted upward. “And you?”

It took Matt a moment to realize she was talking to him. He pointed at his chest. “Me? Drink prune juice?”

She hit him with a frosty glare, waiting for some sort of response.

“I uh... no. I mean, I don’t need... Do I? I don’t think I do. Maybe I do? I mean, sure. I guess I could drink some.”

Her lips twitched, her frosty glare thawing, the same moment Buck and Shorty burst into laughter. Matt’s face flushed with heat. “Okay. I see what’s going on here. Wow. Funny. You guys are a bunch of Jerry Seinfelds, aren’t you?”

The smile on Wanda’s face transitioned all the hard angles out of it. “We have to have some sort of fun, don’t we, boys?” She winked and left the room with a promise to check back in an hour.

When all the chuckles had died down, Buck told Matt to take a seat. As expected, he asked about Gracie. Even though Gracie called Buck every day and assured him she was healing and would be back to visiting soon, Buck wanted a full scouting report on her reaction to Noah’s arrival.

When Matt told Buck yesterday that Noah was moving into the rental on Gracie’s property, Buck had gone into such a coughing fit, Matt thought for a moment he’d killed him with the news. Turns out, he was just laughing. “So how did it go? Did she look happy at all to see him?”

“Happy? Uh, well...” Matt tugged on the brim of his baseball hat. “You know, I think maybe beneath all the sweat and anguish, there was a glimmer of happiness, yeah.”

“And you?” Buck asked when they’d finished talking about Gracie and Noah. “What’s going on with you?”

“Oh, you know. Not much now that mowing season’s over. Doing some odd jobs here and there. Volunteering at the animal shelter. Just trying to stay busy until snow removal season kicks in.”

“Uh-huh. And what about your love life?”

Matt almost wished for a mouthful of prune juice right now so he could spray it all over his grandpa for asking such a silly question. Would’ve been more fun than merely raising his eyebrows and saying, “Excuse me?”

“Have to say I was mighty surprised when Mona let the cat out of the bag that you were engaged. The girl only moved back to town, what? A week or two ago?”

“I keep telling Mom we’re not... Wait. Moved back to town? What are you talking about? Who are you talking about?” Matt removed the worn baseball cap Noah had given him in high school, rotating the brim of it around in his hands. Surely he wasn’t talking about—

“Rachel. Who else?”

Matt jumped to his feet. Too bad there was nowhere to move in a tiny patient room with two beds. So he sat back down. “Rachel? Rachel’s not... Why would you think... She doesn’t live... No. Is she?” Matt cleared his throat. “Are you saying Rachel’s back in town?”

Buck was coughing and laughing and coughing some more, clearly amused at Matt’s rambling.

Was it too late to find that can of prune juice?

Buck finally settled down enough after several more coughing laughs to say, “She took some sort of temporary position upstairs on the dialysis unit since half of the department is out on maternity leave. Who’d you think I was talking about?”

“Aimee.”

“Aimee.” This time his laugh was more wheeze than cough. “Why would I be talking about Aimee? I thought you broke up with Aimee.”

“I did break up with Aimee.”

“Then why are we talking about Aimee?” Buck made a face like he’d just bitten into that pureed meatloaf slathered in sanitizer. “Good night, I saw more spark between a dead fish and a limp worm than I ever saw between you and Aimee .”

“Aw c’mon, that’s not true. Aimee’s a sweet girl. Besides...” Matt stood, really wishing he could do more than march in place to burn off some energy. He sat back down. “Sometimes too much spark can lead to an explosion. Look at Noah and Aunt Gracie. Sometimes it’s smarter to date a dead fish. Not that Aimee was a dead fish. Or I’m a limp worm. That’s not—” He shoved his hat on his head. “Just because Aimee and I broke up doesn’t mean something’s going to happen between me and Rachel.”

“Really? As I recall, you two used to be awful chummy. Some might even say... sparky .”

Time to go. Matt stood. “You got it all wrong, old man. I mean yeah, we were friends. Good friends.” Some might even say best friends. “But not sparky. Nowhere even close to sparky. And that was a long time ago. That was, you know, back in high school.”

“Ah. Well then. Practically a lifetime ago,” Buck said. “What’s it been? Three, four years?”

“Closer to five.”

“Oh my. Who can even remember that far back?” Shorty said with a chuckle.

Matt tugged on his hat, forcing a tight smile. “Not me, that’s for sure.” Especially when it came to one of his biggest regrets.