When Walter finally passed away, the emotions hit me all at once. Grief, yes. But also something I hated admitting to myself: relief. I had given more than a decade of my life, and all that remained were his few belongings and memories of a man who had slowly faded before my eyes.
I didn’t expect anything after his death. There was no talk of inheritance, no lawyer, no will filled with surprises. Walter had never owned much. I assumed he left nothing behind.
I was wrong.
On the day he died, he asked to speak to me alone. His body was frail, his hands trembling as they rested on the blanket, but his eyes were unusually alert.
“There’s something I want you to have,” he murmured.
He reached beside the bed and handed me an old pillow — misshapen, yellowed with age, the fabric worn thin from years of use.
I stared at it, confused.
A pillow?
“You’ve taken care of me for so long,” he said softly. “Please… keep this.”
I forced a smile and nodded. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but I couldn’t understand why he would give me something so meaningless. It felt like nothing more than a sentimental relic.