Hospice Harpist

@perfectrose2011 Newest Chapter The Knock It had been a while. Long enough for the silence in the house to grow teeth. Long enough for me to forget what it felt like to be interrupted. Ernest had been abroad—Spain, maybe Cuba—on business, on whatever it is ghosts call unfinished work. So when the knock came, it startled me. Not loud. Not urgent. Just… certain. I opened the door, expecting no one. And there he was. Ernest didn’t say a word. He stepped forward, wrapped his arms around me, and pulled me in tight—too tight. The kind of hug that doesn’t ask permission. The kind that almost suffocates you. “Jesus, Ernest,” I gasped into his shoulder. “You trying to finish me off?” He didn’t let go. “Not a chance. You’re too damn stubborn to die easy.” I laughed, but it cracked in the middle. He finally released me, holding me at arm’s length, studying my face like a man reading a familiar but painful page. “You look worse,” he said. “Thanks.” “Good,” he replied. “Means you’re feeling it. Men who don’t look worse after loss worry me.” We moved inside. The house felt different with him in it—like the air had weight again. He didn’t sit right away. He walked slowly, taking it in. The chair. The photographs. The quiet. “She’s everywhere,” he said. “Yeah,” I whispered. “And nowhere.” That stopped him. He turned, eyes narrowing. “That’s the trouble with love. It doesn’t leave cleanly. It lingers. Like smoke in the walls.” I sank into the couch. “I talk to her every night. Before bed. Tell her what I did. Like she’s still… listening.” Ernest nodded once. “She is.” I looked up at him. “You believe that?” “I believe a man doesn’t survive this unless he does.” Something inside me broke then. Not quietly. Not with dignity. It came out of nowhere—a wave I couldn’t outrun. My chest collapsed inward, my breath hitched, and suddenly I was crying uncontrollably. Not tears—this was something else. Violent. Shaking. The kind of crying that feels like your body is trying to expel the pain all at once and failing. Ernest didn’t say a word. He didn’t rush in with advice or poetry. He just stood there, steady, letting it happen. Letting me fall apart without trying to fix me. When I could finally breathe again, I wiped my face with both hands, embarrassed. “Sorry.” “Don’t be,” he said quietly. “That’s the most honest thing you’ve done all day.” We sat in it. The silence wasn’t empty—it was full of everything I couldn’t say. “I’m tired, Ernest,” I admitted. “Not just tired. Hollow. Like someone scooped me out and left the shell behind.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “That’s grief. It’s not just sadness—it’s an excavation. It digs until it finds whatever’s left of you worth keeping.” “And what if there’s nothing left?” He gave me that look—half pity, half defiance. “There’s always something left. You wrote it down once. That dog of yours—Bella. You turned love into something that lives beyond you. A man who can do that isn’t empty. He’s just… wounded.” I shook my head. “Feels like more than that.” “It is,” he said. “It’s the cost. You don’t get fifty years of love without paying for it at the end. The bill always comes due.” I swallowed hard. “And this is it?” “For now.” He stood, walked over, and put a hand on my shoulder. Not crushing this time. Steady. “But listen to me—this pain? It’s proof. Proof you didn’t waste your life on something small.” I looked up at him, eyes still wet. “I don’t know how to carry it.” “You don’t,” he said softly. “You let it carry you for a while. And then, one day, you stand up under it again.” Bella padded into the room, resting her head on my knee. Ernest smiled. “See?” he said. “You’re not alone in the fight.” Neither of us spoke after that.

@mikejwhelan