Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN THEY CALLED A GOLD DIGGER
Caleb learned about the wedding two days before it happened.
He cornered me beside the hospital elevators.
“You understand he’s taking morphine?”
“I administered oncology medication for forty-one years.”
“Then you know impaired patients make irrational decisions.”
“Thomas has been evaluated. He understands what he’s doing.”
Caleb stepped closer.
“My uncle is worth more than he’s told you.”
There it was.
Not concern.
Territory.
“I haven’t asked him for anything.”
“You came back after fifty-six years and found him dying.”
“I was assigned to his floor.”
Caleb laughed.
“Were you?”
I remembered Thomas admitting he had seen my name in the newsletter.
For one humiliating second, doubt moved through me.
Caleb saw it.
“You don’t even know how much of this he arranged, do you?”
The elevator doors opened.
Two nurses and a patient transporter stepped into the hallway. Caleb lowered his voice but not enough.
“A lonely old woman marries a dying businessman. People are going to understand exactly what that looks like.”
The nurses pretended not to hear.
I stepped into the elevator and faced him.
“Then they can look as long as they want.”
My confidence lasted until the doors closed.
Thomas and I married in a private family room beside the hospice unit.
Grant attended with two nurses. My old friend Darlene brought a grocery-store cake and a bouquet of white carnations.
Caleb arrived ten minutes late with his wife, Jenna, and their seventeen-year-old daughter, Sophie.
Jenna kept her coat on.
Sophie looked embarrassed by everyone.
Thomas wore a dark suit jacket over his hospital clothes. He could no longer stand without help, so we exchanged vows seated beside each other.
When the officiant asked whether anyone objected, Caleb shifted his weight.
Thomas looked directly at him.
Caleb remained silent.
Afterward, Darlene cut the cake while one of the nurses helped Thomas take two small bites.
I was pouring coffee when Caleb spoke from behind me.
“How much did he leave you?”
The room became still.
Jenna touched his arm.
“Caleb.”
“No. We’re all pretending this is romantic.”
Thomas tried to rise.
I placed my hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t.”
Caleb looked around the room.
“She appears out of nowhere after half a century, waits until he’s weak, and marries him in a hospital. Are we really not going to say it?”
Sophie whispered, “Dad, stop.”
I set down the coffee pot.
“You think I married him for his company.”
“I think people do strange things when retirement money runs out.”
The cruelty was precise because he had investigated me.
He knew about my rent.
My pension.
My part-time hospital job.
Thomas’s face reddened.
“Get out.”
Caleb looked at him.
“I’m trying to protect what you built.”
“No,” Thomas said. “You’re trying to make sure nobody looks at how you’ve been protecting it.”
Caleb went pale.
That was the second clue.
At the time, I did not understand it.
Jenna pulled Caleb toward the door. Sophie remained behind for a moment.
She approached Thomas and bent to kiss his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Thomas held her wrist.
“Six ten.”
Sophie’s eyes widened.
Then she left without answering.
I waited until the door closed.
“What did that mean?”
Thomas released my hand.
“Nothing you need to carry today.”
“You told her a time.”
“She used to visit the shop after school.”
“Thomas.”
He looked exhausted.
“Please let me have one day where I am only your husband.”
So I did.
For the next month, I cared for him at his house in Oakwood with hospice nurses coming twice a day.
Some mornings he was lucid enough to tell stories.
Other days, he slept while I read beside him.
Caleb visited only twice. Each time, he went directly into Thomas’s study and closed the door.
After the second visit, I found Thomas staring at a company payroll report.
Several names had been circled.
“What is that?” I asked.
“People who trusted me.”
“Are they losing their jobs?”
“Not if the machine still works.”
I thought he meant the company.
Now, standing at the east entrance of Mercer Tool & Die at 6:08 p.m. after his funeral, I realized he had meant something else entirely.
Grant inserted Thomas’s brass key into the side door.
Inside, the darkened shop smelled of cutting oil and hot metal.
May you like
At exactly 6:10, a light came on in the upstairs accounting office.
Someone was already inside.
