Every Sunday, the script they’d given me—favorite colors, imaginary childhood dog, made-up college plans—felt thinner against the weight of Walter’s attention. He remembered every detail, even the ones I hadn’t meant to share: the way my mother’s hands shook counting tips, the way Noah’s eyes glazed when the pain meds hit too late. “You sound tired,” he’d say, turning his clouded gaze toward me like he could see the nights I spent bargaining with God and insurance companies. I started staying after my paid hours ended, washing his dishes, listening to him trace the shape of his dead wife’s laugh in the air. Once, when I stumbled over the word “Grandpa,” he squeezed my hand and whispered, “You don’t owe me anything you don’t want to give.” But I kept coming back, unpaid and uninvited by anyone but him, until the oxygen hiss in his bedroom grew louder than his jokes and the nurse began to speak in careful, futureless tenses. By then, the checks I cashed felt like counterfeit compared to the currency of his trust, and I was terrified that when his heart stopped, the only version of me that felt real would van…

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