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A homeless man held up a sign that read, “Marry me. I have only one month left to live” — I agreed out of pity, but the letter I received after his funeral made the blood drain from my face. I passed Larry every morning on my way to the office. He was a quiet, respectful homeless man who usually sat outside my subway stop. Over the past two years, we’d developed a simple routine. I’d bring him a black coffee, and we’d talk about the weather for a few minutes before I hurried off to work. But on a freezing Tuesday morning last month, he wasn’t asking anyone for spare change. Instead, he was holding a piece of cardboard that read: “Marry me. I have only one month left to live.” I stopped and crouched beside him, handing him his usual coffee. “Larry, what is this?” I asked, confused. He looked awful—paler than normal, his hands shaking as he took the cup. “The clinic gave me a month,” he said hoarsely, staring down at the pavement. “Liver failure.” “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, completely caught off guard. “But… marriage?” “I just don’t want to die as a John Doe, Sarah,” he said quietly, his eyes filling with tears. “I want to belong to someone on paper. I want someone to claim my ashes instead of letting the city put me in an unmarked grave.” I’ve always been more empathetic than was probably good for me. I was single, practical, and my heart broke for him.
Larry’s letter came six days after we buried him.
I found it wedged between a phone bill and a grocery flyer, in a thick white envelope with my name written across the front in his handwriting. I knew that handwriting. I’d watched him fill out hospice forms with it, his hand shaking so badly the nurses offered to write for him.
I smiled when I saw the envelope. I thought Larry had written me a goodbye. The man couldn’t take a cup of coffee from me without thanking me three separate times. Of course he’d written a goodbye. He probably thanked me in it twice.
The first line read:
“Sarah, I need to apologize before I thank you.”
I set the letter down.
“No,” I said, to nobody. My apartment was empty. The heater ticked. My tea went cold in front of me.
Let me back up, because you need to know how it started, or none of the rest will make sense.
I met Larry two years before he died, though “met” isn’t the right word. You don’t meet the man who sits outside your subway station. He’s just there one day, part of the scenery, like the newspaper box and the broken parking meter.
The first winter, I walked past him the way everyone walks past. Eyes forward. Fast pace. I told myself I was busy, which was true, and I told myself somebody else would help him, which was a lie people tell themselves every single day.
Then one morning I bought two coffees by accident.
I’d been on the phone with my sister, half paying attention, and I ordered on autopilot. One with cream. One black. My sister always drank hers black and I must have been thinking about her. By the time I hung up, I was standing there holding a coffee I didn’t want, and Larry was six feet away, blowing on his hands.
I don’t know why I gave it to him. It was easier than throwing it out, maybe. It was easier than carrying it.
“You take it black?” I asked.
He looked up at me like I’d said something suspicious.
“That the only kind you got?”