My Childhood Sweetheart Asked Me to Sign a Special Folder in Room Four Hundred Seven

The smell of institutional bleach mixed with stale soup always settled in the back of my throat the moment I stepped onto the fourth floor of St. Jude Hospital. On the bedside table in Room Four Hundred Seven, a plastic pitcher of ice water sweat onto a stack of unpaid tax notices with red ink.

Ben sat up in the high bed, adjusting the collar of his continue reading …