Margaret tipped her head back against the white hospital pillow.

“He’s forty years too late to scare me,” she said.

She turned her face toward me, her blue eyes sharp in spite of the gray smudges of exhaustion under them.

“Why do you think I asked for this particular parish hospital, Tom?” she asked.

I touched my brass wedding band with my left thumb before answering.

“I figured it was because Oakridge is your hometown,” I said.

“I knew you were the resident chaplain here,” she said.