I married a dying stranger because I couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving this world alone.
For seven days, I was his wife.
Seven days.
Then he died.
Less than an hour after his death, his lawyer placed an old, faded green backpack in my lap and quietly said something that changed the way I understood the man I had just married.
“Thomas wasn’t who you thought he was.”
I looked down at the backpack.
I expected secrets.
Maybe money.
Maybe a hidden family.
Maybe some complicated legal situation I had unknowingly become part of.
Instead, I found places.
The first envelope was labeled:
Bus Stop.
That was all.
No date.
No explanation.
Just those two words, written in Thomas’s careful handwriting across a piece of cream-colored paper.
I stared at it for a long moment.
My husband.
The word still sounded strange inside my head, like a coat I had borrowed from someone else’s closet.
I had been married to Thomas for seven days.
The attorney stood beside the now-empty hospital bed, one hand resting on the strap of the backpack.
“Sarah,” he said gently, “Thomas wanted you to know the truth.”
I looked toward the bed.
The pillow still held the faint impression of his head.
His peppermint tea sat untouched on the tray table.
And around my finger was the strangest wedding ring anyone could imagine.
The pull tab from a soda can.
Thomas had slipped it onto my finger when we got married because there had been no time for anything else.
