He looked at the maple leaf.
“After his diagnosis, he saw your name on the hospice volunteer list and finally made one request. ‘Her,’ he said. ‘If she’s willing.’ He didn’t ask for you because he wanted to tell you who he was.”
Mr. Baron smiled.
“He asked because, after years of quietly hoping you were all right… he finally had the chance to meet the woman you had become.”
“Arthur wouldn’t let him.”
Carl’s letter explained the rest.
I did not request you because I expected gratitude.
I wanted to know whether life had been kind to you.
Then you entered carrying vegetable soup, moved my laundry without making me feel weak, and argued that “qi” was an acceptable Scrabble word.
I knew. Not because you looked the same.
