One afternoon I found him halfway up the steps, breath short, cane knocked aside. I slid beneath his arm and lifted, my body remembering work it had done for toddlers and elders alike. A scrape marred his knee; I cleaned it with a damp cloth while he watched me, not with embarrassment but with gratitude so pure I had to look away.
“No one has cared for me like this since my wife,” he said. He lifted my fingers to his lips and kissed them—long, grateful, and impossibly gentle.
“Neither do I,” I said.
That night I stayed later than I ever had. We ate soup, talked softly, and climbed the stairs together. At his door he paused. “Don’t leave me alone in this new life,” he said.
“I won’t,” I answered, and felt the ground shift under truths that had been waiting.
Two Weathers in One House
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