I was clocking out after a long night shift when my supervisor caught me in the hallway. She said there was someone in the conference room asking for the nurse who used to bring the quilt.

I figured it was some family member with a complaint or a thank-you note. I did not expect what walked through that door.

Back in 2008 the ER got busy every time the temperature dropped below freezing. We saw a lot of folks who had nowhere warm to go. One night they wheeled in a man with both feet turning black from the cold. No wallet, no coat, just a thin shirt and jeans stiff with ice. He would not give us a name. I sat with him while we waited for a bed and I asked if there was anyone I could call. He just shook his head and stared at the wall.

The next night I brought the quilt my mother made before she passed. It was nothing fancy, just squares of old flannel and a faded border. I told him it had been sitting in my car trunk since I cleaned out her house. He looked at it for a long minute then said, “That’s too nice for a place like this.” I told him to take it anyway and that I had plenty of blankets at home. He nodded once and pulled it up to his chin.

He came back the next winter with the same frostbite trouble on his toes. The quilt was still with him, folded under his arm. I asked how he had been and he said he tried staying in a shelter but the rules were too much. We talked for almost an hour that night between my other patients.

He told me his name was Roy. I told him mine was Linda. It felt like the start of something small and ordinary.

The third winter he showed up again, thinner this time, and the quilt had a new tear along one edge. I fixed it with some thread from the supply closet and we sat together again. He asked about my kids and I told him my daughter lived two states away and barely called. He said family was hard sometimes and left it at that. I started keeping an extra sandwich in my bag just in case he came through the doors.

Then he stopped coming. Three full winters went by with no sign of him. I asked the other nurses if they had seen anyone matching his description and nobody had. I told myself he probably found a better place or maybe got help somewhere else. Deep down though I kept picturing the worst. I would drive past the park on my way home and wonder if he was out there under a bench. It sat with me for years.