Richard looked down at his worn work boots resting on the clean tile floor.

“There’s nowhere downtown I need to be,” Richard said.

He reached over and gently laid his right hand over hers, feeling the thin bones of her fingers beneath his palm.

“We’re going to a house by the lake tomorrow morning,” he said quietly.

“Just you and me.”

Emily didn’t answer, but her fingers twitched beneath his hand, slowly letting go of their tight grip until her palm lay open against his skin.

Richard sat back in the chair and rested his arm on the mattress, content to sit quietly beside his daughter’s hospital bed.