Erratic Nerd Writings

He made his way to the last room of his rounds for the night, the aching tautness in the back of his calves yelling at him to finish his shift already so they could get some relief. At least the final patient in this room was pretty cut and dry. He rarely ever spoke, if he was even conscious, and other than checking his vitals and ensuring he had taken his meds, there wasn't anything else that needed tending to. The patient was mobile again, and was expected to be released soon barring any unforeseen circumstances.

The bedside lights were on when he entered, though the patient didn't seem to be doing anything other than simply sitting there, his eyes fixated on some cross-stitch hanging on the wall to the right of his bed that had been donated to the hospital. The TV was off, his book sitting on the table next to his empty water cup. His gnarled, spotted fingers clutched at the homemade blanket his wife had brought in weeks ago loosely.

“Not feeling too horribly sleepy tonight, huh?”

The patient shook his head as the nurse came around the bed to check the myriad readings from the machine tucked out of the way. It made a low, steady humming noise as it broadcast the man's inner workings, and the nurse copied down the numbers onto his clipboard in all of the appropriate places.

“You know, there's so many of those things in all the rooms, I don't even really look at them anymore. You probably know the details of this room a lot better than I do.”

He glanced over at the frame on the wall, curious what this one was. Most of them were some inspirational or supposedly insightful statement on life and death, that sort of thing. This was some vista of outer space, however; a background of blacks and dark blues, with what he could only guess was some sort of colorful gaseous cloud or nebula, maybe? He wasn't really sure; it was pretty, though. He wondered how he had ever missed it before; he used to look at everything when he had first started here.

“It stirs up some memories. A lot of little things seem to do that when you get this old.”

The nurse grinned as he jotted down the last of the readings, the man's voice always welcome when he heard it. It had a warmth to it, despite the coarseness that he could only guess came from the guy's age. An easy-going drawl he couldn't place. From what he'd gathered from the other nurses, the guy seemed to be social during the latter half of the day, while he was working, more than any other time. He looked up from his clipboard to smile at him.

“Funny how things come out of the blue like that, huh? Good memories, I hope?”

The patient's eyes shifted to lock with his own, the blueish-gray seeming to expand as his pupils focused on his face.

“You're about to get off for the night, aren't you?”

His brow pinched together slightly at the switch in their conversation, an involuntary tingling in his stomach as he wondered why the guy was interested in knowing. He responded reluctantly.

“About, yes...”

The patient's eyes switched back to the cross-stitch, his shrunken-in chest rising and falling slowly as he seemed to consider something. “Please don't let it be some weird last minute request,” the nurse thought. “A sponge bath, a walk around the floor, some fucked up fetish or something...”

“I don't suppose you'd indulge an old coot and sit and talk for a while? Hear a memory or two.”

The nurse made sure to keep his expression neutral, but inwardly he sighed. He was really looking forward to walking into his shabby little apartment where his overly thrilled dog would be waiting, heating up a frozen dinner, and parking his pajama-clad ass down in front of the television for a few hours watching one of the movies he had lined up. He was off for the next few days, and the aches and pains in his lower back, feet, and legs had been pining for that extended relaxation for a while. Besides, the facility didn't exactly encourage extended fraternizing with the patients like that, for the patient's sake as well as the employee's. Then again, the guy would most likely be gone before he came back to work. And he just wanted to talk, share a few stories. The nurse thought about his situation for a moment; he wasn't really that hungry yet, and at least he could sit down. Who knew, maybe they'd be better stories than one of the movies he was going to watch anyways. Old people were full of surprises. What if the guy was going to confess to some awful crime or something, though?

“Wouldn't perhaps want me to get one of the patient consultants...?” It was a last ditch effort, but worth a shot.

The man's gaze was back to his again, his own expression seeming to grow somber.

“It started with the pigs on my ma and pa's farm, when I was about twelve, but eventually I couldn't stop myself, it felt so good, and...and before I knew it, I was...I was...I was drawing Sharpie mustaches on everything I could find!”

The man's guffaw was punctuated by a smack to his own thigh as his lips parted, baring the too-perfect rows of false teeth in his mouth. The nurse's shoulders sagged as he exhaled in relief, shaking his head. For a minute, he thought that was going to go somewhere really bad very quickly.

“Hell, son, I don't wanna talk to no mental fiddlers. Put whatever name to em you want, I know what they're used for.”

The patient had a strange sense of humor, no doubt about that. He felt like he had a weird one, too, though, so maybe this really would be worth it.

“You know what, why not. Lemme go finish up and clock out, then I'll swing back around. Need anything else before I no longer have to listen to you?”

The man cracked a smile at the nurse's levity, seeming to sit up in his bed a little, adjust the blanket in his lap.

“Just a fresh pitcher of water, that's all. Can't talk with a dry mouth.”

*************

He padded down the hallway back to the man's room, holding a bottle of water and a honey bun he had left over from his lunch in his locker. The nurse on duty had raised an eyebrow when he mentioned what he was doing, but had simply shrugged her shoulders as she turned back to her computer screen dismissively.

“Long as you're gone before Cindy comes in; you know she'll shit kittens if she finds out.”

Cindy was their supervisor, but she wouldn't be in for hours, yet. This wouldn't take that long, the guy would probably talk himself to sleep first. Thinking of his dog again, locked up in his crate, he considered simply turning around and just going home. He owed nothing to the man; sure, it'd probably be a disappointment for the guy, but it simply wasn't his job. He wondered, not for the first time, why the guy wanted to have a talk with a relative stranger, anyways. The guy had family; a wife, at least two different adult kids, from what he could remember. Maybe a couple of friends, too? The other bed in the room had been empty for a while, they must have been there for him.

He found his feet continuing to stride forward, though. Found the last room at the end of the hall approaching even as all of that ran through his head. And before he knew it, he was seeing the man crawl into the upright bed stiffly, the sound of a toilet tank refilling coming from the bathroom.

“For a minute, I thought you had changed your mind and weren't comin back.”

The nurse chuckled a bit as he crossed over to the chair in the corner, dragging it over near the occupied bed so the guy wouldn't have to make his voice carry so much, so they could have a bit of a private conversation. He positioned it on the side away from the machine, so when the nurse came by to check in, he'd be out of the way. The old man was still getting himself re-situated; tucking the sheets in just right, pulling that faded, gently tattered blanket up over his lap.

“Honestly, I thought about it, won't lie. Work so hard here, I usually try to run out of here as soon as I can.”

The man had a twinkle in his eyes as he smirked towards the off-duty nurse, who was settling in the chair.

“I bet you'd be lingering if that cute lil auburn-haired nurse with the freckles was working the shift after you, instead of before.” He chuckled softly. “Though I suppose you'd be at that station out there, versus here...”

The nurse's cheeks flushed at the old man's remark, wondering if he was that blatant about his interest in her. He had always thought he was doing a good job of downplaying his attraction...maybe he was talking about someone else? They didn't interact that much in front of the old man, surely.

“I uh...I'm not sure...”

The man waved his hand as he rolled his eyes.

“Oh please; I'm old, I'm not deaf, blind, and stupid. And we both know the girl I'm talking about. You should ask her out; she likes you, too, ya know.”

The nurse shifted in his seat uncomfortably, not liking the direction of this talk so far.

“We're coworkers, that wouldn't be professional.”

The man snorted.

“Son, fuck professionalism. Neither of you are supervisors over each other or anything, and your job isn't your life. If the two of you are adults about it, the rest will all work itself out.”

The nurse cleared his throat, fiddling with his water bottle cap for a moment as he dropped his eyes and shuffled his feet.

“Look, sir, if you were wanting to talk, that's fine, but I'd rather...”

The old man sighed, shrugging his shoulders a bit.

“You're right, you're right, I know....”

The nurse looked up as the man trailed off, to find him staring up over his shoulder, at the cross-stitch on the wall again. There was an awkward moment of silence, and the nurse suddenly decided this had all been a big mistake; he was trying to come up with something polite to announce his departure, when the old man spoke again.

“Truth is, I've never really talked about this with anyone before. Can't. Or couldn't, I suppose.”

The nurse frowned, part of him curious, but another part wary of finding out. Why the hell did this have to happen on his last shift...? The man's gaze shifted back to look at him.

“You're...what, in your twenties...?”

“Twenty-six, yeah.”

“Hmph...to be that young again...I'm sure you're thinking 'why doesn't he talk about this with his family, with his wife? Why me?'. Well, son, if there's one thing I learned, even if I didn't always obey it, is sometimes it's best to just keep your damn mouth shut. Some things, they just don't want to know!”

The nurse opened his bottle to take a sip of water, wondering where this was going. The guy cheated on his wife at some point, that had to be it. He found himself imagining the liver-spotted, wrinkled old man in his prime, flirting with the girls, chasing tail. Probably being an asshole, too, whether it was intentional or unintentional. Some of the things his parents had said while he was in high school were appalling, let alone this guy, who was probably old enough to be THEIR parent, possibly even the grandparent of his parents. Social interaction between genders had come such a long way...

“You ever been in love before?”

The old man's question broke him from his reverie. Had HE ever been in love before? He sure hoped this wasn't going to turn back on him again. He had no desire to talk with this guy about his love life, or lack thereof.

“Well, I mean...I've dated, sure, even had a girlfriend for a while there, but...”

“But...? Two of you dated long-term and you can't even say that you loved her?”

The nurse frowned a bit.

“Well sure, we said it to each other, but I mean...hell, we were just kids, really. We didn't really know what love even meant.”

The man settled his head back against the pillows, staring up towards the inoperative TV for a moment.

“You know, I've heard that a lot through the years, people talking about how kids don't know what love means. I think it's bullshit. You got your phone on you?”

“Uh...yes...”

“Look up 'love' for me. Read me what they say the definition is.”

The nurse had a puzzled look on his face as he dug out his phone from his pocket, but proceeded to do as the man asked. He actually had a dictionary app on his phone; working in a hospital, there were times he came across words he didn't remember from school, and it helped. He read from the screen.

“Well, there's a long list of them...'profoundly tender and passionate affection for another person', 'a feeling of warm attachment or deep affection', 'to have affection for', 'sexual intercourse or copulation'...”

“Those dictionary definitions?” When the nurse nodded, the man grunted. “Wikipedia?”

The nurse was surprised the old man even knew what Wikipedia was. He routinely had to explain to most of the patients this guy's age how to operate the TV; they seemed like they'd be equally unqualified to use the internet. He started skimming over the article after pulling it up.

“Uh...'a variety of feelings, states, and attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection to pleasure'...can refer to an emotion of strong attraction and personal attachment....can also represent human kindness, compassion, and affection...oh, unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another, I like that....”

“Okay, okay...now, notice a common trend there? Amongst all that?”

“Well...affection. Feelings of affection for someone or something, I guess.”

The old man nodded, as if this explained everything.

“There ya go. I'm sure you knew what love, or 'feelings of affection' were when you were with this girlfriend of yours, just like I'm sure she knew, too.”

The nurse frowned, turning off the screen of his phone while he put it back into his pocket.

“Affection, maybe, yeah, but...not REALLY loving someone...”

The old man lifted his head from his pillow to look over at him again, his eyes narrowing.

“How would YOU define love, then? This 'REAL' love that you seem to be hung up on...”

The nurse's brow furrowed even deeper with frustration. He felt like the old man was purposefully trying to get him riled up; the guy knew what he was trying to say, surely.

“Real love, as in...the love you have for your wife, or your kids. You know, not like...puppy love, or sexual attraction. Love that stands the test of time, that stays through thick and thin; the love you get married over.”

The old man was grinning.

“Now see, THAT is something else entirely.”

The nurse's expression became incredulous, but the old man held up his hand before he could respond. He was quite a moment, his bottom lip being sucked into his mouth briefly before he continued.

“You'll at least agree that everyone loves differently; they define it differently, they express it differently and all?”

The nurse mulled that over for a bit, but made a face and shrugged his shoulders a little.

“Sure, that makes sense. That's why 'love' is so hard, everyone has a different concept of what it is.”

“But that's just it. They don't, really. You said 'real love' was what people get married over, that it stands the test of time. But what you're describing is impossible. Love's an emotion, right? Can you tell me you're happy constantly, or you're sad constantly? Maybe that you're angry all the time? Of course not; they're emotional states, just like love. It comes, it goes. It ebbs, like a tide.”

The nurse frowned again, shaking his head in disbelief.

“You mean to tell me the love for your wife has come and gone?”

The old man rolled his eyes.

“I mean I've been married to my wife for over fifty years. She's my best friend. That don't mean there weren't times I didn't get annoyed with her, or get angry with her. There were times I wondered why I ever married her, and I know for damn sure she had the exact same feelings over the years.”

“Yeah, but...you guys still loved each other. That's what I mean; sure, sometimes you felt those other emotions, but throughout the years, you two still loved each other.”

The old man's eyes drifted off, glancing down at the blanket that rested over his lap.

“Not throughout, no. There were times I hated her, times she hated me. See, it's not love everyone is confused about. When I say 'love', people think of different things. Different memories, different expressions people they've loved shared, different concepts of what they want from it, even. But love the FEELING, the EMOTION...that's not so different. In fact, I'd say it's pretty much universal.”

The nurse scoffed.

“You mean to tell me the hot cheerleader I drooled over back in high school stirred the same emotion in me as that girl I dated, or the auburn...”

The old man grinned broadly as the nurse stopped himself from finishing that sentence. He didn't shift his gaze in the nurse's direction again, which was good; the nurse felt a heat in his cheeks.

“Of course not. But you had learned the difference between lust and love by the time you started datin that girl, right...?”

The nurse seemed to mull that over a bit, so the old man continued.

“Some guys, and even some girls, are thinking with their loins well past high school. And that's fine. But even most of them realize the difference between physical desire and emotional desire. The phrase 'knowing what love is' is about as outdated as I am. Generally, people learn what love the emotion is pretty damn early, because love the emotion is pretty much the same. Warmth, affection, a softening of your defenses. What people MEAN to say when they say 'don't know what love is' is people don't know what they want from a relationship. They don't know how to express their deepest emotions to another person.”

The nurse's eyebrows rose as he pondered that. That...made a lot of sense, actually. He looked up at the old man, to find those aged eyes looking right back at him. He cracked a bit of a smile, and found himself taking another sip of his water bottle. The old man reached for his plastic cup and did the same, holding it for a bit as he seemed to be gathering his thoughts some more.

“As a kid-which lemme tell you, was a damn long time ago-it always angered me when I heard people say that phrase, whether it was about me or not. That never changed as I got older. I knew what love was back then, what I didn't know was how to express how I felt about the people I loved, or how to respect them and myself. And I didn't know how to communicate what I wanted from a loving relationship. How to foster a relationship. That, my friend, is what people struggle with, and sometimes never understand. Hell, I don't think even I understand completely. It's an ongoing process that never ends, I don't think. And it's different for everyone person. Because, and I repeat again, love is an emotion; it's not a solid state of being that never changes. People change, emotional states change, relationships change.”

“So...you're saying...love, the feeling, the emotion, is the same, but...people express it differently as they change, which...causes their relationship to change? And they don't always love each other, even then?”

The man's wrinkled face beamed with a bright smile.

“Well, seems like you were listenin after all!”

The nurse chuckled a bit, shifting in his seat as he gripped that honey bun package, creating a crinkling sound.

“How the hell did we get here, again? Wait! You asked if I'd been in love before...now, isn't feeling love, and being IN love, two different things, at least? I mean...okay, I can see that...that love the emotion is...well, real, regardless. But...being IN love...”

The old man waved a hand dismissively, his eyes dropping down.

“We'll get to that in a minute...you going to eat that?”

The nurse followed the man's eyes down to the honey bun he was clutching in his hand. He shrugged his shoulders and looked back up.

“Well yeah, I mean...normally I eat dinner when I get home, so I brought this with me in case I got hungry while we talked. It's leftover from lunch. You can't eat this.”

The old man's face scrunched up in a pout.

“Why the hell not?”

“It's not healthy for you!”

“And you mean to tell me it is for you?”

The nurse frowned, using the honey bun to point at the old man.

“You're only supposed to be eating hospital food.”

“You got that from the vending machine here in the hospital, didn't you? That makes it hospital food. At least just tear me off a few bites, what harm could that do...?”

He was wavering, unfortunately finding the old man's logic pretty damning, when he was rescued by the on-duty nurse coming in to check the man's vitals. She smirked at them both as she circled around the bed towards the machine, picking up the clipboard at the end of the bed along her way.

“You two still chatting it up in here?”

The old man turned his head to glance up at her, a look on his face that almost made the male nurse drop that honey bun.

“I'd rather be in here chattin with you, but you sadly made it quite clear you couldn't be lingering with your patients, apparently not even your favorites.”

She grinned, shaking her head as she copied down the information.

“I never said you were my favorite, and probably because you're absolutely incorrigible.”

“You forgot tenacious.”

She chuckled, her eyebrows raising up on her brow.

“THAT goes without saying.”

“This man won't share his honey bun with me. I'm wastin away to nothingness, while he's full of youth and vigor, but he insists what's bad for him, is even worse for me.”

Finishing her task, she moved back to the foot of the bed to replace the clipboard, glancing over at her coworker in the chair before resting her wrists on her hips and looking at the old man.

“You want me to bring you a snack?”

“I'd like a honey bun.”

“Well there aren't any buns of honey you're going to be getting in here.” She lifted her left arm to glance at her watch. “I shouldn't even be giving you anything, it's too late. But I'll bring you some applesauce, if you'd like.”

The old man huffed, his lower lip jutting out.

“Applesauce...hmph! Fine...bring me some applesauce.”

The male nurse, satisfied the man was going to get some food of his own, went to pull the plastic wrapping of the honey bun down so he could take a bite. His coworker smacked him on the shoulder as she walked by.

“The least you could do is eat that thing outside so he doesn't have to watch you!”

He glanced over at the old man, who was beaming triumphantly, a pink appendage sticking out from his lips. He shook his head as he got to his feet, pointing that bared honey bun at his adversary.

“Don't think I don't see what you did there!”

*************

He settled back into the chair a while later, waiting for the old man to get out of the bathroom, his eyes falling on the emptied plastic cup with smears of applesauce coating its sides. His tongue swiped across his lips, the taste of sugary sweetness refreshing in his mouth as he caught a bit of lingering icing. He'd had to go to one of the public bathrooms on the floor himself while he and the old man had taken their respective breaks; somehow it felt odd using the one in the room here. His stomach rumbled a bit, and he wondered if he had time to run and get one of his own containers of applesauce or something; that honey bun just wasn't cutting it. About that time, however, the toilet flushed, and soon enough the sound of the sink's faucet reached his ears. He glanced up at that cross-stitch up on the wall, not for the first time wondering what about it had gotten to the old man, and where all of this was going, what the point was. The door opened, the sound of the old man's slippered feet shuffling across the floor filled the room. His back was hunched, and his hands would reach out to grasp and press against things frequently for support as he made his way to the bed, but he was moving on his own pretty well.

“Should've dropped one in there so you'd be forced to endure the smell. Lucky for you, that just wasn't happenin!”

The old man cackled as the nurse shook his head with a grin.

“If you had done that, I'd just have an excuse to leave, Mister Crude. I still don't even know what we're really talking about here.”

“Bah, I'm just too old to give a damn anymore.” The man made an impatient sound as he settled into the bed, getting settled once again and then sighing a bit as he pulled that blanket up close. “Love. Commitment. Relationships.”

The nurse nodded encouragingly as he lifted a leg up to rest over the opposite knee. He waited, holding what was left of his water bottle.

“Bein 'in love' with someone. What does that mean, to you?”

The nurse's eyebrows shot up as he started mulling that over, his right hand lifting up to stroke at the stubble on his jaw idly.

“Well...a relationship, I guess. Feeling so strongly about someone you're either in a relationship with them, or want to be?”

“And by 'relationship', you mean a...'committed to that person only' interaction with said person you're in love with, yes?”

The nurse shrugged, nodding.

“Yeah. Monogamy.”

“What do you think our society has constructed monogamy to be?”

The nurse squirmed in his seat, his mind racing. Was that it, was this guy some sort of swinger or something? He tried to put that aside to focus on the question, tried to put into words his worldview, as it were. Not something he was used to doing.

“Uh...well, someone loving someone so much they commit to them. No one else, just that one person. That...by that commitment, they're showing how deeply they love that person above all others.”

“And loving someone else outside that commitment...?”

“Well...I mean, someone other than family? I guess that'd be cheating. Or at least...I dunno, kinda immoral?” He frowned. “I mean, at least that, even if there's nothing sexual going on...?”

“Lemme ask you something. This ex-girlfriend of yours...why'd you two break up?”

The nurse shifted in his head again, but didn't take long to respond.

“Well, we realized we both wanted different things in life. Had different priorities.”

“So it wasn't some explosive break up involving someone else, just a realization?”

The nurse nodded slowly.

“Yeah...basically. I mean...it was far from easy or anything, for either of us. But no, there wasn't someone else involved. When we realized things weren't going to work out, we decided to stop before it got to THAT point.”

“THAT point being falling in love with someone else. Tell me...do you still love her?”

The nurse's mouth opened to respond almost immediately, but slowly shut without saying anything as his brow furrowed. His gaze dropped down to his lap for a moment, his fingers twisting the water bottle cap back and forth idly. After a few moments of silence, he answered, his voice subdued.

“I guess...I mean, I know things just...just wouldn't have worked out.” His face scrunched up a bit. “But still, I WANTED them to, you know? I sorta resented her for a while afterwards, for...for doing everything right but still ending up alone. But I got over that, eventually, and...and yeah, it's not like I hate her or anything...”

The old man's gaze had shifted to look over at some blank point on the opposite wall, his eyes a million miles away. The nurse looked back down at his water bottle, reliving memories of his own, but the man's voice broke into his thoughts.

“Sometimes you love someone and the timing just isn't right. She needs to live there, you need to live here. She's ready to delve into the next level of a relationship, you're still trying to sort out the first one. You're ready for one stage of your life, she's not finished with the other. Even you're seeing someone else, and she's not. It's all timing.”

The nurse wasn't sure what to say to that. Even if the timing had been different with her, he didn't think that would have helped their outcome any. They wanted different things in life. Then again, he had changed a lot since then; what he set out believing he wanted had changed compared to what he wanted now...

“Let's go hypothetical here. You start datin auburn-haired girl. You two hit it off. You love her, she loves you. Does that mean you suddenly don't love your first girlfriend any more? Does that mean you're guilty of cheating, because you love someone outside of that commitment to Auburn?”

He frowned, but shook his head slowly.

“Well no, of course not, I mean...that's in the past. And...I mean, I love her, kinda, still, but...I'm over her. We're over, I mean you just can't...”

The old man interrupted him.

“But the fact it was in the past doesn't diminish it at all, the fact that you've moved on doesn't make it less somehow. That feeling you two had, it was real. You both knew what it was, the timing just...wasn't right. And now there's Auburn. You don't love her less, somehow, because she's not the first woman you've fallen in love with, right?”

“No!”

“Because love isn't some fixed state! It's not some limited resource pool; once you've parsed it out, it starts diminishing!”

The nurse blinked, his eyes widening as he involuntarily leaned away from the bed. The old man had sat up, was leaning forward slightly, his arthritic hand clutching the side-railing of the bed firmly. His gaze was intense, this singular point something the old man was obviously very adamant about. He managed to fumble out an unsure response.

“Okay....?”

The old man stabbed a finger against the railing, using it to emphasize three words.

“The concept of 'one true love' is bullshit!”

The old man leaned back, his lips tightly clenched-quivering a bit, even-his eyes alive with more fire than the nurse had ever seen in them. The nurse swallowed around a throat he abruptly realized had gotten very dry, and he found his fingers fumbling with the water cap, unscrewing the lid so he could take a quick sip. He wasn't sure what to say, felt like to break the silence would incur the old man's wrath. Was he being too loud swallowing? The old man continued, his face dropping to look down at the blanket in his lap as he moved his hand from the railing to curl his fingers into it.

“You don't stop lovin other people when you get married, or when you commit to a relationship. It doesn't make you an adulterer, or a bad person, or an immoral sinner. It just means you're still human.”

The nurse stared at the old man as he lowered his water bottle, hearing a trembling in the man's voice, a vulnerability, he hadn't heard before. He sat the water bottle down on the floor next to his chair, absorbing the old man's words, his mind awhirl with implications. The old man wasn't finished, however.

“There's no 'happily ever after', no 'perfect relationship' or 'one true love'. You make relationships with people every day. You nourish and nurture relationships with people you care about all the time. Sometimes, you encounter other people you grow to love; that doesn't mean you've stopped loving everyone else.”

The old man paused for a moment, whether to collect his thoughts again or for breath, he wasn't sure, but the nurse had to tentatively ask.

“What...what does that make monogamous relationships, then? If...if not a choice to only love one person?”

“Commitment. A promise that we're in this together; that regardless of loving other people, our lives move together, side by side. Lives of mutual trust.”

The nurse watched the old man run his fingers along the weave of the blanket tenderly, as if he were stroking a newborn kitten. He thought about all of that, about the frail old soul in the bed in front of him, the man he had barely heard a dozen words from before tonight. What kind of life had he lived, what would a conversation with him had been like back when the old man was his age? He tried to assimilate that, the familiar noises of his work place the only sounds in the room.

“Sir, I...well, that's a lot to take in. And I can't say I've ever thought about any of that like that before, I really appreciate the wisdom. I'm just...I really don't understand why you're telling me all this. Why this wasn't something you couldn't have told anyone else.”

The old man sighed; a soft, long exhalation of air that was filled with weariness and the full weight of so many years lived. His jaw moved a few times, but he didn't speak. His eyes lifted up, and the nurse was surprised to see moisture welling up through his eyelashes. He looked at the cross-stitch on the wall again for a few moments, then looked back down, pulling that tortured blanket even closer.

“Years before I met my future wife, there was a woman I loved more fervently than I ever thought possible. She emotionally supported me, bolstered me, and touched my very soul. I became a better person for her having been in my life.”

The nurse felt his throat constrict at the raw emotion laid bare in the old man's voice. Tears were painting their trails down the wrinkled, lined face shamelessly. The nurse swallowed roughly, trying to wet his mouth enough to speak.

“What happened?”

The man choked back a small sob, but a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. After a few moments of regaining some degree of composure, he managed to rasp out.

“Bad timing.”

The nurse smiled grimly, sadly; curious though he was, he dared not press further.

“Amongst everythin else, I still had a lot of growin up to do.” He paused for a moment, glancing up at the cross-stitch again, lingering for a bit this time. “She hurt me more deeply than anyone else ever has, too. Not that I didn't have it comin, to some degree.”

The nurse waited for the old man to go on, but he seemed lost in gazing up there at the wall, just over his shoulder. He went to grab his water bottle, but remembered too late he had already emptied it. He licked his lips nervously, glancing up at the old man, then back down to his feet.

“So why...”

“I never stopped loving her. I met my wife, we made a family together, shared more than half of our lives together, but I never stopped loving her. Was hardly a day that went by I didn't think about her, feel the ghost of her walkin through my mind.” He coughed suddenly, his bony shoulders hunching forward as he lifted his arm to cover his mouth, his entire body convulsing with the force of it. He shook his head, lowered his arm and cleared his throat loudly. “You can't tell a spouse that, no matter how much the two of you love each other, no matter how much you trust and share everything else together.”

The nurse's hands clenched on his thighs, his teeth gnawing at his lower lip thoughtlessly, simply overwhelmed.

“I'd give just about anything to see her one last time, before I die, but I don't even know what I'd say to her after all these years. If she's even alive. If she even remembers me, or doesn't hate me.” He lifted a hand from the bed, pointing a shaking finger towards the cross-stitch. “That thing right there...it's been a long time since I saw something that so vividly reminded me of her. And for it to be now, here, of all places...” He coughed again, shaking his head as he withdrew his arm and swiped his hand across his face.

The nurse turned in his chair to look at the cross-stitch, blown away by the depth of emotion coming from this man, wondering how long he'd been carrying this along with him, how deeply he had buried all of this inside. He found himself talking without thinking, not even aware where the thought was coming from fully.

“Do you think she truly loved you the way you always thought she did?”

He hated himself for saying it as soon as he did, wishing he could take it back. He turned to look at the old man, about to ask him to forgive his rudeness, but his aged eyes had shifted to stare right at him, and the nurse found himself unable to speak. There was no anger in that gaze, no shock or betrayal; simply acceptance. The old man's eyes glided back up to that cross-stitch, going back to a different place, a different time.

“I can still remember the way her eyes lit up when I opened that door the first time, the joy that filled me when I finally got to wrap my arms around her, bury my face in her luscious hair, inhale her scent for the first time.” He was silent a few moments, then slowly shook his head. “I don't have an answer for you, you know that.”

The nurse tried to keep the disappointment from his features, the burning need to know, to understand, but the old man could see. Understood the frustration.

“I trust she did. I believe that smile that captured my heart and made it sing...that it was born from love. That the feelings she elicited from me were rooted in how she felt for me, too. That all those memories, those feelings, weren't the misbegotten hopes and wishes of a lonely man. In the end, that self-belief, that trust? That's all any of us ever really have.”

*************

He came back into work an hour early, hoping he could spend some time with the old man again. He had asked the on-duty nurse before leaving that night if she could let him know if the guy was going to be released while he was off.

“You're here early, lose track of the time or something?”

He felt the heat involuntarily flare to life in his cheeks, stammering a bit as the bob of auburn colored hair swished past him as he was heading to the old man's room.

“Um...well uh, I was actually coming to see one of the patients. Think he's going to be released this evening, and...well, we talked quite a bit the other night. Kinda wanted to say my farewells, ya know? He's a pretty...interesting guy.”

She turned to look at him, her eyes widening.

“Which...which guy...?”

Something in her face made his throat tighten.

“Room 426...?”

She bit her lower lip, her expression softening, her voice quiet.

“Oh, I'm...I'm so...he...he died this morning...in his sleep...”

“What?! But he...he was recovering! He was going to be released!”

“I'm so sorry, I...I don't...”

He spun around and took off down the hallway, almost bowling over one of his coworkers just outside the room as she was hefting a plastic bag of used linens onto her cart.

“Hey! Watch it!”

“Sorry!” He tossed over his shoulder, his shoes squeaking on the floor as he stuttered to a stop inside the room, his eyes sweeping around. Empty. Empty and scrubbed clean, sanitized like so many other rooms he had dealt with over the years. Nearly ready for the next occupant. His head whirled around to look at the wall, where one of those plastic adhesive pull-tab hooks was perched. They never used those to put things up on the walls. He turned to look back at his coworker, who was frowning at him from the doorway as she wiped a stray lock of hair from her face.

“There was a...a cross-stitch, up on the wall right here.” He pointed at the hook.

“Yeah, the space one, right? Never saw that up there before until that guy was in here.”

“What happened to it, did one of his family take it?”

Her face scrunched up, her eyes darting up towards the ceiling in recall.

“Erm...I dunno...the wife and I think one of their kids came in to get his things. Neither of them paid any mind to that. They left, and I had already started cleaning up the room when this other woman stopped by, though.”

He felt his breath catch in his throat, his eyes widening.

“What'd she look like...?”

“Short; as old, if not older, than that guy. Beautiful hair. She'd been crying, clearly had to have known him. Asked if she could get that thing, I said sure. I just assumed she was a relative or something. Why, was it yours?”

His vision started getting blurry, his eyes filling with hot, burning tears as he glanced at the bed, now empty; crisp, stark-white sheets pulled taut over it.

“No. No, it wasn't.”