PART 1
I married my patient knowing she had only three days left to live. After her funeral, her sister walked up to me with a box and said, “She asked me to give you this only after she was gone.”
My name is Gavin. I’m thirty, and becoming a doctor was all I ever wanted.
My parents couldn’t help much with tuition, so through medical school I studied all week and worked weekends to pay my bills.
Then I met Brielle.
She was eighteen, beautiful, and somehow the funniest person on the floor.
Even after treatments left her exhausted, she joked with nurses, teased me about my serious face, and always had another ridiculous story ready when I entered her room.
“Doctor Gavin, you know smiling is free, right?”
I’d roll my eyes.
She’d laugh.
Then we learned the medication was no longer working.
There was nothing more the doctors could do, and Brielle had very little time left.
Later, she looked at me and said,
“I have one last wish.”
“What is it?”
“I want to marry you.”
I thought she was joking.
She smiled weakly.
“Come on. I don’t want to show up in heaven as an unmarried woman.”
The next day, we had the smallest wedding imaginable right there in the hospital.
I wore a tie instead of my stethoscope.
A nurse braided thin strips of clean bandage into two simple rings.
Brielle wore a soft white scarf over her bald head like a veil.
Her sister brought flowers.
Brielle smiled through the whole ceremony.
Two days later, she was gone.
After the funeral, I stood beside my car, still unable to believe any of it had happened.
Then Brielle’s sister hurried toward me carrying a small box.
“She asked me to give you this only after she was gone.”
I took it.
My name was written across the lid in Brielle’s handwriting.
When I opened the box, the first thing I saw made me forget how to breathe.
PART 2
I thought marrying my terminally ill patient was an act of kindness. After her funeral, her sister handed me a box bearing my name. Before I’d finished reading its contents, an accusation threatened everything I’d worked to achieve.
I was thirty, a doctor with a white coat, a medical degree, and student loans that still frightened me.
Medicine had always been my dream. My parents couldn’t cover tuition, so I studied during the week and worked weekends. By the time I met Brielle, I believed my toughest years were behind me.
She was eighteen and easily the funniest patient on our oncology ward. Even exhausted from treatment, she could make nurses laugh while they changed her bedding.
“Doctor Gavin, you know smiling is free, right?”
I’d try to look stern until she made me smile.
Six weeks after we met, she caught me checking a loan reminder on my phone.
“Bad news?”
“I worked weekends all through medical school. I’m still paying for it.”
She grimaced.
“They should refund you for the handwriting alone.”
Then her medication stopped working.
On Tuesday, the attending physician told her family she probably had three days left. Afterward I hesitated outside her room, afraid she’d ask for another treatment I couldn’t provide.
Instead, she asked me to sit down.
“I have one last wish.”
“What is it?”
“I want to marry you.”
I assumed she was joking, but her faint smile stayed serious.
“Come on. I don’t want to show up in heaven as an unmarried woman.”
“Brielle, I’m your doctor.”
“If I were marrying for love, you wouldn’t be my pick, doc.”
She glanced at a passing nurse, blushed, then looked back at me.
“But I have my reasons.”
“Then why me?”
“Because you listen. Even when what I want sounds silly. I want one big thing I get to choose.”
“It isn’t that simple.”
“Why does having less time make my wish less worth thinking about?”
I couldn’t explain my refusal without picturing her disappointment. I should have tried harder.
Instead, I imagined one happy afternoon in the middle of weeks of terrible news. I transferred her care to another physician, but I never asked my supervisor, Dr. Whitfield, whether going ahead was appropriate.
We married the following day in her hospital room.
I wore a tie instead of my stethoscope. A nurse fashioned two rings from strips of clean bandage, and Brielle draped a white scarf over her bald head like a veil.
Her sister Tessa brought flowers. Brielle smiled through the entire ceremony. Tessa adjusted the scarf twice, then squeezed my hand.
“Thank you. You gave her something. I mean it.”
For a little while, the room felt different from the ward where we usually delivered bad news. The wedding gave Brielle the chance to decide how one afternoon would unfold. I held on to that smile and ignored the questions I should have asked.
I left believing I had helped.
Brielle died two days later.
At the funeral, I stood behind people who had loved her all her life, unsure where I belonged.
Afterward, Tessa hurried toward me beside my car, carrying a sealed box.
“She asked me to give you this only after she was gone.”
Brielle had written my name on the lid.
I opened it while Tessa watched. Inside was a letter from a lawyer: Brielle had left me her share of her grandmother’s inheritance.
The amount would cover every student loan I owed. I checked the number and my name twice, convinced there had been a mistake.
A folded note lay underneath. Before I could open it, Tessa leaned closer. Her face flushed red.
“What the hell?” she shouted. “She left you Grandma’s money?”
She jabbed a finger at the letter.
“I didn’t know. I swear, I had no idea.”
