Chapter 4
The nurse’s name was Elaine, and she had been trying not to cry since the vows.
She had seen hospital weddings before.
Some joyful.
Some desperate.
Some arranged in hallways because time did not wait for chapels.
But Thomas and Nancy were different.
They did not seem like two elderly people rushing to complete a ceremony before illness finished its work. They seemed like two teenagers who had misplaced sixty years and found them folded inside a hospital room.
Elaine stood near the equipment, pretending to check the oxygen line while listening to Thomas joke about traps and lawyers and love with the calm of a man who had already made peace with something no one else had.
Nancy looked at her suddenly.
“Nurse, did you know about this box?”
Elaine’s eyes widened.
“No, ma’am.”
Thomas chuckled.
“She has been innocent of my schemes.”
“Schemes,” Nancy repeated.
“I said traps earlier. Schemes sounds classier.”
Nancy tried to be stern.
She failed.
Her face crumpled into laughter and tears at the same time.
Thomas lifted her hand and kissed her ring lightly.
That tiny gesture silenced the room.
Even Nathan looked away, as if the intimacy of it deserved privacy.
Nancy touched the oxygen tubing near Thomas’s cheek, making sure it sat correctly.
“You are impossible.”
“Yes.”
“And stubborn.”
“Yes.”
“And apparently dangerous with a lawyer.”
“Only after lunch.”
She leaned her forehead against his again.
This time, neither of them spoke.
The monitor beeped softly.
Daylight moved across the bedspread.
The white bouquet trembled against Nancy’s lap.
Nathan stood still near the foot of the bed, the wooden box tucked against his suit jacket like a heartbeat from another room.
Nancy closed her eyes.
For a few seconds, she let herself be newly married.
Not afraid.
Not questioning.
Just married.
Thomas’s thumb moved slowly over her ring.
“I wanted you to have this moment first,” he whispered.
Her eyes opened.
“What moment?”
“This one.”
He looked at their hands.
“Before the box. Before questions. Before everyone else gets loud.”
Nancy’s breath caught.
Everyone else.
There were no others in the room, yet the phrase seemed to fill it with shadows.
Nathan’s eyes lowered again.
Elaine pretended not to hear.
Nancy sat straighter.
“Who is everyone else?”
Thomas gave her that faint smile again.
“The people who will be surprised you said yes.”
Nancy frowned.
“To marrying you?”
“To walking into my trap.”
She stared at him, stunned again.
May you like
And Thomas looked delighted.
Read Chapter 5 👉 Because Thomas spoke of other people without naming them, and Nancy began to understand the box might change more than her own grief.
