Take care of him. Let him take care of you.
Don’t disappear, Caleb. That’s an order.
— Bennett
By the end of the letter, I could barely see through my tears.
A chair scraped across the floor.
Graham sat down across from me.
“He give you orders from the grave too?” he asked.
I laughed weakly.
“Yeah.”
He nodded.
“He left me one too. Same bossy tone.”
That one night turned into a week.
We called the VA. Sat on hold. Fixed his address. Gave them a phone number that wouldn’t disappear.
Eventually the paperwork started moving.
Graham received his pension.
He found a small apartment across town—old building, thin walls, but working heat.
I helped him move in a mattress, a few boxes, and one framed photo of Bennett.
He hung it above the television.
“You sure you don’t want money?” he asked one day.
“I’m sure,” I said.
He nodded.
“Then I’ll pay you back how I can. Food. Fixing things.”
That’s how Sunday dinners started.
