One morning before sunrise, Mary walked into the kitchen and found him sitting alone at the table in the same suit he had worn the day before. A bottle of whiskey sat half empty in front of him.
He wasn’t drunk.
Just defeated.
Mary quietly brewed coffee and placed a cup in front of him.
After a long silence he asked, “Do you have children?”
“I had a son,” she replied gently. “He died ten years ago. A car accident.”
Nathaniel stared into his cup.
“My boy hasn’t eaten in fifteen days,” he murmured. “The doctors say his body won’t survive much longer.”
Mary looked at him not as an employee looking at her employer, but as one grieving parent seeing another.
“May I see him?” she asked.
Nathaniel hesitated before finally nodding.
The third floor hallway smelled of disinfectant and quiet despair.
Ethan lay pale and weak in bed, staring at the wall.
When Mary lightly touched his shoulder, he flinched.
“Go away,” he whispered hoarsely.
“I won’t force you to do anything,” she said calmly. “I just want to know what hurts.”
“Everything,” he replied.
Mary recognized that emptiness.
It was the same darkness she had carried after losing her own son.
“I understand,” she told him softly.