The coffee cup that outlived the diagnosis

I found it this morning—chipped, pale blue, the kind of mug you’d use for a routine check-in. It’s been in my drawer since last winter, when I stopped seeing patients. The patient who left it didn’t know she was teaching me how to leave a room: not with a handshake, but with silence. I poured coffee into it today, just to see if the shape still held warmth. It did. Not much, but enough.