“Do you have any specific worries about him?” I asked.

The interpreter, a young man seated next to me, transformed my English into the musical tones of the Asian language spoken by the little-known agrarians from the mountains.

Before his wife could finish her sentence, her husband, the patient, lifted his head slightly and mumbled a short phrase. His lips hardly moved; I watched the few, wiry whiskers on his wrinkled chin wave as his jaw shifted positions.

An amused smile flashed across her elderly face, the wrinkles on her forehead resembling the even rows of crops she once tilled before she departed from her homeland. Her fingers, still slender and fluid, covered her mouth as she laughed. A single, beautiful ring adorned her left hand; it was a mosaic of muted purple, red, orange, blue, and silver.

The patient, his face tired and old, looked at his wife—was that disdain on his face?

She continued to laugh quietly.

I turned to the interpreter, my perplexed expression clearly asking the question that my lips had yet to ask.

“She said that she’s worried that he’s going to die,” he said, stifling his own smile, “and then he said, ‘She wouldn’t worry even if I was already dead.’”

I cocked an eyebrow at the patient, bypassing the need for translation. His facial features softened and a playful smirk appeared. He then looked at his wife and and smiled.

His wife recognized the affection in his face and her eyes filled with mirth.

Only then did we all start to laugh.