“No thanks, I’m living on ice chips and painkillers these days.”
“I heard that’s how Keith Richards lost his baby weight.”
“You’re very funny this evening. One might almost say chipper. Love is in the air, I guess.”
“We’ll see,” Ed said, but he was smiling.
“I heard you got two new roommates today. That’s a good indicator.”
“Gossip sure travels fast, even in here.”
“Everybody’s talking about it,” Scott said. “The nurses on this floor think you’re too old for her, but the surgical interns think you should go for it. The pediatricians are just concerned about Tommy.”
“I saw Maggie today.”
“Wow, I did not see that one coming so soon,” Scott said. “Give me a second.”
“She’s really upset,” Ed said. “I offered to bring her so she could talk to you about it but she didn’t want to come.”
“Did she tell you why she’s upset?”
“She said you hid a letter from her, a letter from Gabe.”
“I did. I found it in Margie’s stash.”
“What did it say?” Ed asked.
“I have no idea,” Scott said. “I didn’t read it.”
“But you didn’t give it to her. She said she found it after you dropped it.”
“I was going to give it to her.”
“You had only the best intentions, I’m sure.”
“I didn’t burn it, which I considered doing.”
“So you don’t know what it said.”
“No, do you?”
“No,” Ed said. “She didn’t tell me.”
“Well, she hasn’t been to see me even though I almost died yesterday, so it couldn’t have been too flattering.”
“You want to tell me what you think it said?”
“I don’t know what Gabe said happened, but I can tell you my version, and then you can tell me what you would have done.”
“Okay.”
Ed closed the door, sat down in the chair by the window, and listened. After Scott finished his story, Ed didn’t say anything for a few minutes. The silence deepened in the room as the sky darkened outside and snow began to fall. Silence seemed like the only appropriate response to a story filled with so much regret and loss.
“I would have done the same thing,” Ed said finally.
“Thank you,” Scott said, and then put his head in his hands and wept.
Ed sat with his friend until the nurses threw him out, and then went home to his new family.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my mom Betsy. Thank you to first readers Ella McComas, Joan Turner, and Terry Hutchison. Thank you to my friends at the Huntington Museum of Art. Also thank you to Joan Grasser, Jaimie Falls, and all the kind people at Hospice of Huntington.
Books by Pamela Grandstaff
Rose Hill Mysteries:
Rose Hill
Morning Glory Circle
Iris Avenue
Peony Street
Daisy Lane
Lilac Avenue
For Children:
June Bug Days and Firefly Nights
Ella’s New Hat and Her Terrible Cat
Morning Glory Circle Page 32
