Then Ray started getting tired in ways that seemed wrong.
He moved noticeably slower around the house, struggling with tasks that had never challenged him before.
He sat halfway up the stairs to catch his breath between floors.
He burned dinner twice in a single week, which was completely unlike him.
“I’m fine,” Ray insisted when Hannah questioned him.
“Just getting old.”
He was fifty-three years old.
Mrs. Patel finally cornered Ray in the driveway one afternoon.
“You need to see a doctor immediately,” she demanded.
Ray went reluctantly to his appointment.
He came home carrying medical paperwork and wearing a blank, shocked expression.
“Stage four cancer,” he told Hannah quietly.
“It’s everywhere already. Too far gone.”
Hospice workers moved into the house within days.
Medical machines hummed constantly, and medication charts covered every surface of the refrigerator.
The night before Ray died, he shuffled slowly into Hannah’s room and eased himself carefully into the chair beside her bed.
“You know you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, right?” he said.
Hannah tried to lighten the unbearable moment.
“That’s kind of sad, Uncle Ray.”
“Still absolutely true,” he replied.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” Hannah whispered, tears streaming down her face.
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