 I told her I did not. Nurse Paula paused for a brief moment before telling me, “He asked for her at the very end.” By half past seven that same evening, I found myself standing inside his workshop holding a shoebox, twenty-seven money order stubs, and a name that had never once surfaced throughout our forty-two years together.
Thomas had passed away right at home in the front bedroom simply because that was his preference.
I kept repeating that fact to myself as though it somehow proved what a devoted wife I had been.
The honest reality was that hospitals terrified me, while Thomas loathed the thought of fading away beneath harsh fluorescent lights. So we reached a compromise the way couples married for a lifetime tend to do.
I harbored my fears, and he received his final wish.
Hospice delivered a hospital bed, a small bedside rolling table, and a machine that hummed a quiet, rhythmic breath even when Thomas was sound asleep. Nurse Paula dropped by every forty-eight hours. She wore her gray hair pinned up with a pencil and possessed hands that always felt comforting and warm.
Thomas genuinely liked her.
Toward his final days, there were very few people he actually tolerated having near him.
During that last week, he drifted constantly between deep slumber and fleeting awareness. On two separate occasions, he addressed me by my sister’s name. He requested coffee despite being unable to swallow any liquids for several days. Once, he even urged me to “inspect the south fence,” even though we hadn’t raised cattle since 1998.
Therefore, when Paula rang me sixteen days after the funeral, I naturally assumed she was simply checking in regarding some leftover medical supplies.
I had been sitting at the kitchen table working on thank-you notes. My handwriting had grown noticeably shaky. A casserole dish provided by the Methodist ladies was currently soaking in the sink because someone had loaded it with far too much cheese, which had baked hard along the edges.
Paula mentioned that she had gone back and forth debating whether to make the call.
Then she inquired if I was familiar with a woman named Maryanne.
I very nearly chuckled because I figured she must be referring to one of the hospice volunteers.
I answered no.
Paula allowed the silence to stretch out.
I finally prompted her by asking why she brought it up.
She replied, “He asked for her right at the end.”
And it wasn’t just a single time, she clarified.
He asked three separate instances.
The final time occurred roughly twenty minutes before his breathing pattern shifted. Thomas snapped his eyes open and stated clearly, “Tell Maryanne I kept the blue house.”
I hurriedly scribbled those words onto the back of an unused sympathy card because I simply did not trust my own memory.
Tell Maryanne I kept the blue house.
We had never owned a blue house in our entire lives.
Our very first residence was a beige rental over in Peoria where ants constantly invaded the pantry. Our current home featured white vinyl siding alongside green shutters that Thomas always despised yet never actually bothered to replace.
I told myself that people frequently muttered peculiar things on their deathbeds.
Then Paula offered one final piece of information.
“He looked genuinely at peace after he said it.”
At peace.
That single phrase weighed heavily upon my chest for the remainder of the afternoon.
Following supper, I made my way out to his workshop.
The space still retained its familiar scent of fresh sawdust, engine oil, and the peppermint candies he always kept stored inside an old Folgers coffee tin. His hand tools were arranged with unusual precision, as though he had instinctively known he would never touch them again.
I began pulling open drawers I had spent thirty long years cleaning around.
Old receipts.
Worn-out mower blades.
A cracked watch face.
Tax records dating back to 2004 for reasons only Thomas could possibly fathom.
Deep inside the lower cabinet, tucked right behind a cardboard container filled with Mason jar lids, I uncovered a shoebox securely wrapped in duct tape.
Inside rested a stack of money order stubs.
Twenty-seven in total.
The monetary values varied.
One hundred and fifty dollars.
Two hundred and twenty-five.
Three hundred and ten.
They were consistently mailed out every March or October.
Furthermore, every single one was directed to the exact same post office box located in Duluth, Minnesota.
Made payable to Maryanne Cole.
I sank down onto the cold concrete floor because the wooden stool suddenly felt entirely too far away to reach.
The very last stub bore a date eleven days prior to the arrival of hospice care.
At the absolute bottom of the shoebox, I stumbled upon an old photograph.
It captured Thomas looking roughly twenty-five years old, standing proudly beside a bright blue house alongside a woman cradling an infant.
Scrawled across the reverse side in Thomas’s unmistakable handwriting were four distinct words.
“Before Ruth. Don’t destroy.”
I flipped the photograph back over just as a pair of bright vehicle headlights swept across the workshop window…