I Pretended to Be an Old Woman's Son at the Nursing Home Because Her Real Family Paid Me – After She Passed Away, the Director Said, 'She Left One Last Request for You'

Nobody had asked me those things in years.

"Sit, sit," Rosie said, patting the chair beside her. "Have you eaten? You look tired."

"I'm okay, Mama."

"Are you sleeping enough, Timmy? You always pushed yourself too hard."

Nobody had asked me those things in years. Not since my dad left. Not since my mom got sick.

I sat there for an hour, mostly listening. Rosie talked about a garden I had never seen and a dog I had never owned, and I nodded along as if it all belonged to me.

When I stood to leave, she squeezed my hand.

"Come back soon."

"I will, Mama."

As I turned toward the door, I glanced back and saw tears shining in her eyes. She quickly looked away and dabbed at them with the corner of her blanket.

Something in the way she said it made me look away.

***

The second time I visited, I brought tulips. The third, a small box of caramel chocolates that the nurse said Rosie liked. By the fourth visit, I was showing up on a Wednesday, a day Tim had not paid for.

In the corridor I met Margaret, a fragile woman with sharp eyes and a cardigan two sizes too big. She watched me carry the flowers past her door.

"You visit her a lot," she said.

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