I did not know, then, anything real about him.
He presented himself to the hospital staff, and to me, as a man entirely alone in the world, a forgotten soul with no living kin, and I had no reason to doubt it, because it was exactly the kind of person I had spent a year sitting beside.
I thought I was comforting a lonely old man in his final days.
I did not know that the lonely old man had lived a whole enormous life, full of love and craft and unbearable loss, and that he was, in those unhurried conversations, quietly deciding that I was the person he had been waiting decades to find.
Chapter 3 — Marry Me, Nora[]
Then, one afternoon, Julian reached for my hand.
“Marry me, Nora,” he whispered.
My heart started pounding.
“Julian,” I said gently.
“You’re seriously ill.
We barely know each other.” It was true, and it was the reasonable thing to say, and every sensible bone in my body said it.
