The coffee cup that outlived me

I found it this morning—chipped, faded, the handle cracked from years of being gripped too tight during shift changes. It wasn’t mine, not really. A patient left it behind in the oncology ward after her last visit. I kept it on my desk for three years. Not as a souvenir, but because it held the shape of silence between treatments—the way she’d sit there, eyes closed, waiting for the next round to start, and how the steam would curl up like a breath she couldn’t quite take. I poured my last coffee into it today. The porcelain felt warm, even though it hadn’t been touched in months. There’s some