brass key tied to a faded red ribbon.

“My apartment.

Bedroom closet.

Green metal box under the coats.”

Caleb took the key.

“What is in it?”

Harold turned his eyes toward the window.

“Letters.”

“What kind of letters?”

Harold was quiet.

“The kind people write when they are afraid they may run out of chances to say things.”

Caleb looked at him.

Harold continued.

“I started after Diane died.

One for Emily.

One for Daniel.

A few for people I worked with.”

He paused.

“And one for you.”

Caleb’s chest tightened.

“For me?”

Harold gave a faint smile.

“Do not look so terrified.

I am not dead.”

The next morning, Caleb went to the apartment.

The place felt different without Harold inside it.

Too still.

He found the green metal box beneath two winter coats and a pair of work boots.

Inside were dozens of envelopes tied in bundles.

Emily.

Daniel.

Diane.

Frank.

Lewis.

Near the bottom, he found one with his name.

CALEB.

The date in the corner was from nearly two months earlier.

Three days after their first conversation.

He stared at it for a long time.

Harold had not told him to read it.

So he did not.

He carried the box to the hospital.

By then Harold’s daughter, Emily, had arrived from Colorado.

She was in her fifties, with tired eyes and the same thin smile as her father.

When Caleb entered the room, she stood.

“You’re Caleb.”

He stopped.

“You know me?”

Emily looked at Harold.

“Oh, we know a lot about you.”

Harold groaned.

“I may have exaggerated your virtues.”

Emily hugged Caleb before he could react.

“My dad talks about Friday coffee more than anything else.”

Caleb glanced at Harold.

For the first time since they met, the older man looked genuinely embarrassed.

Emily sat beside the bed.

“I didn’t know how bad it had gotten,” she said quietly.

Harold looked away.

“I was managing.”

“You were ordering single groceries so delivery drivers would visit.”

Harold said nothing.

Emily’s eyes filled.

“Dad, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because every time we spoke, you were asking whether I had taken my pills, whether I had paid the property tax, whether I needed someone to clean.”

His voice was not angry.

That made it hurt more.

“I did not want to become another task on your calendar.”

Emily covered her mouth.

Harold looked at her.

“I knew you loved me.”

She shook her head.

“Knowing is not the same as feeling it.”

Harold was silent.

Caleb lowered his eyes.

The sentence struck him too.

He thought of Jasmine.

His mother.

All the people he assumed knew he cared even when he rarely showed up.

Emily stayed in Baltimore for twelve days.

Before returning home, she arranged for a neighbor to check on Harold twice a week and began making a video call every evening after dinner.

Daniel, Harold’s son, rearranged his next work rotation to come home for a month.

Harold hated the attention.

He also loved every second of it.

After his discharge, the Friday coffees continued.

One afternoon in early spring, Harold finally gave Caleb the envelope.

“You may read it now.”

Caleb frowned.

“You planning on dying?”

“Eventually.

It is statistically likely.”

Caleb rolled his eyes.

Harold pushed the envelope toward him.