That part is true.
But by the second day, I sat with him because I wanted to.
***
It became ours without either of us deciding it.
Noon. Same table by the window. Same two chairs.
I sat with him because I wanted to.
He brought the same kind of sandwich most days, wrapped in wax paper like he'd done it for decades.
I brought whatever I'd thrown together that morning.
We talked about small things. The weather. A book he was reading. A complaint about the elevator that had been broken for three weeks.
Nothing that mattered, and somehow everything that did.
We talked about small things.
Charles always had a small notebook in his shirt pocket, worn soft at the corners. After lunch, before he stood up to head back to his cart, he'd take it out and write something down.
Quick. A line or two.
I assumed it was a grocery list, or maintenance notes, or something equally unremarkable.
