Friday morning, I pack a pair of new pajamas for my dad into the bag, as well as some chocolate chip cookies I baked for the nurses, and about twenty copies of the Brady Times into the trunk of my car. Silas, proud of my achievement, bought out every copy in the Bend Market, and at the hardware store, so I have enough now to wallpaper his apartment.

As I head out on the highway, I keep the stereo blasting Silas’ favorite country station and thinking about marketing ideas for the shop. No, Silas never had a shrewd, marketing mind, but that’s what he has me for. It’s actually perfect, that we’re partners in this. It’s almost enough to make me think that football had been the distraction, and that this life is what was meant to be.

When I meet the nurses, one of them, the gray-haired one who didn’t know who Silas was, smiles at me. “I read your column, young lady,” she says from behind the counter. “It was fantastic! It brought a tear to my eye. So we had to read it to your father.”

I smile. “Did he like it?”

“Oh, I think he heard it. His eyes seemed brighter afterwards.”

That’s enough to make my day, completely. Not only are people I don’t know reading and liking my writing . . . it may have just gotten through to my father. What more could I ask for?

“You’re kind of a celebrity here, you know, now,” she says, reaching into a drawer and pulling out a folded copy of the Brady Times. She hands me a pen. “And in my book, even bigger than that young, handsome, football-playing boyfriend of yours. Could you sign?”

I’m confused. “Me?”

“Of course, you. You’re destined for great things.” I reach down and scribble my name underneath the header of my column, feeling odd. This is something Silas is used to, but I don’t think I’ll ever be. “Go on in and see your dad. He’s in his room.”

“Thanks.”

I head down the hallway that I’ve traveled so many times, and when I get there, my father is lying in bed, looking at the wall. He’s been freshly shaven, and I they’ve given him a haircut, so even though he’s wearing his old pajamas, he looks neat and clean, and a bit like he used to when he’d sit behind his desk, in front of a client. But there’s still the lost, sad, desperate wrinkle of worry in his face, one that never seems to go away. I sit on the edge of the bed and show him the new pajamas I bought.

Then I curl my hand around his and whisper things that have been swirling in my head. Things that I haven’t been able to tell anyone. I tell him about Silas. I tell him how afraid I’d been to trust him. I tell him that really, Silas had never let me down, it was just fear, holding me back. “But I’m not afraid, Dad,” I tell him. “I’m not afraid, anymore. And I love him. I don’t think it’s possible to love anyone more than I love him.”

He doesn’t answer. I stay with him through lunch, helping to feed him his grilled cheese sandwich and mandarin orange slices. He doesn’t eat more than a few bites, which is why he’s wasting away. Then I hold his hand, and we watch old All in the Family reruns on TV Land until the sun is starting to lower in the sky. I stand up and give him a kiss goodbye. “I’ll come again in a few days,” I tell him.

When I step outside, I stand in the lobby, signing myself out, as the gray-haired nurse talks to a doctor. “I will, Dr. Bruges,” she says after a moment, before nodding to me and hurrying into the back to make a photocopy.

Dr. Bruges. Where had I heard that name before?

Suddenly, it hits me.

“Are you the Dr. Bruges from Butler?” I ask. “The orthopedic surgeon?”

He nods and smiles at me. “Yes, I’m on call at a number of facilities in the region, but Butler Hospital is my home base. And who are you?”

“Oh, I was in your waiting room on Monday, actually,” I say, smiling at him. “My boyfriend, Silas St. Clair, saw you.”

My boyfriend. I haven’t called him that since high school. But it sounds right to say it out loud. We might even be more than that.

He raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

I nod.

“Wish him the best on his surgery, for me. He needs to get back on the field.”

My face falls slowly. The smile is there, but I can feel it cracking. No longer real. “Oh, he’s not doing the surgery. He decided against it,” I say, confused. Hadn’t he told his doctor that?

He seems confused. “That’s strange. When I took off the cast, the surgery was still scheduled,” he says. “And he said he couldn’t wait to get back. The Steelers are suffering without him.”

“Well, he thought the risk was too big,” I explain, recalling what he’d said to me that day, outside the nursing home, when he’d finally gotten up the guts to confess what had been holding him back here.

The doctor raises an eyebrow. “And what risk is that?”

“That he could become permanently disabled,” I say, wondering what kind of doctors we have in the Alleghenies. Shouldn’t this man know the risks?

The doctor shakes his head. “There’s risk in any surgery, so I never say never, but there’s hardly any chance of him becoming disabled. That surgery could’ve restored his ankle back to near complete normalcy in a matter of weeks, and allowed him to go back to his normal routine.”

I hear my heartbeat in my ears. All that plays in my head is the same thing, over and over again. Silas, saying these words to me: I’m done. “What?”

The nurse arrives with a clipboard. He signs his name carelessly and looks up at me. “I hope your boy does make it to Pittsburgh. They could be in the playoffs with him.”

Then he leaves me standing there, my jaw hanging wide, trying to unravel what, exactly, Silas is up to. But the only thing I know for sure is that he lied. He lied.

I don’t remember if I say goodbye to the nurses. The only thing I remember doing is heading down the sidewalk, toward the wooded area at the front of the nursing home. Once I’m sure I’m at the part where Silas had been, I veer off into the trees. The sun starts to sink, leaving me in inky dusk, but I sift through the leaves, again and again, until I find Silas’ heart.