Timothy sat in his wheelchair, gazing through the grimy hospital window at the quiet courtyard below. The view was bleaka small garden with benches and flowerbeds, now barren in winter, where few patients ventured. Hed been alone in the ward for a week since his lively roommate, Jack Wilson, had been discharged. Jack, a third-year drama student, had been a riot, spinning tales with the flair of a seasoned actor. His visits from his mother, laden with homemade pastries and sweets, had been a bright spot, and Timothy missed the warmth hed brought to the room. Without him, the place felt hollow, amplifying Timothys loneliness.
His brooding was interrupted by the arrival of Nurse Edith. His heart sankit wasnt the cheerful young nurse, Daisy, but the stern, perpetually scowling Edith Hardcastle. In his two months at the hospital, hed never once seen her smile. Her voice matched her demeanour: sharp, brusque, and utterly devoid of warmth.
“Still lounging about, Winters? Off to bed with you!” she barked, brandishing a syringe.
Timothy sighed, turning his wheelchair toward the bed. Edith efficiently helped him lie flat, then flipped him onto his stomach.
“Trousers down,” she ordered. He obeyed, bracing himselfbut felt nothing. Ediths injections were painless, a small mercy he silently appreciated.
Watching her as she checked his thin arm for a vein, he wondered how old she was. Surely past retirement age. *Probably stuck here for the pension*, he thought, pity stirring.
A quick prick, a slight wince, and it was done.
“All finished, Winters. Has the doctor been round today?” she asked, gathering her things.
“Not yet,” Timothy murmured. “Maybe later.”
“Then wait. And stay away from that windowyoull catch your death,” she said bluntly before leaving.
He might have taken offence, but beneath her gruffness, he sensed something like concern. It was more than he was used to.
Timothy was an orphan. His parents had perished in a fire when he was four. His mother, in her last moments, had hurled him through a window into the snow, saving his life at the cost of her own. The burns on his shoulder and his misshapen wrist were the only reminders he had of them.
With no family willing to take him in, hed grown up in a childrens home. His mother had left him her gentle nature and dreamy green eyes; his father, his height, broad stride, and a knack for numbers. Memories of them were scarcefragments of village fairs, his fathers shoulders beneath him, the warm summer wind. Thered been a ginger tomcat, tooTommy or Whiskers, he couldnt quite recall.
No one visited him in hospital. At eighteen, the council had given him a small flat on the fourth floor of a walk-up. Hed grown accustomed to solitude, though it weighed on him sometimes, especially when he saw families together.
After school, hed hoped for university but settled for a technical college. Quiet and bookish, hed never fit in with his peers, who preferred pubs and video games to his journals and novels. Girls ignored himtoo shy, too young-looking at eighteen-and-a-half.
Two months ago, rushing to class on icy pavement, hed slipped in an underpass, shattering both legs. The fractures were severe, healing slowly, but now, at last, the doctor declared him fit for discharge.
“Your bones are mending well, Mr. Winters,” said Dr. Harrison, the orthopaedic surgeon. “Another fortnight, and youll be on crutches. No sense keeping you hereoutpatient care will do. Anyone meeting you?”
Timothy nodded, lying.
“Good. Nurse Hardcastle will help you pack.”
Left alone, panic set in. His flat had no lift, no rampshow would he manage?
Edith returned, tossing his rucksack onto the bed. “Get packing. Matrons coming to strip the sheets.”
As he stuffed his meagre belongings inside, she fixed him with a piercing look.
“Whyd you lie to the doctor?”
He feigned ignorance.
“Dont play daft. No ones coming for you. How will you get home?”
“Ill manage.”
“You wont. Not for weeks yet.”
Her gaze softened unexpectedly. “Look, its none of my business, but… youll need help. Stay with me.”
He stared, stunned.
“I live out in the countrysidetwo steps to the door. Room to spare. Once youre back on your feet, you can go.”
He hesitated. She was a stranger, yet… these months, her brusque orders had carried kindness. *”Eat those fishcakesproteins good for you.” “Shut that window, unless you fancy pneumonia.”*
“Alright,” he said quietly. “But Ive no moneymy grant wont come till”
She cut him off, affronted. “You think Id charge you? Im not running a B&B!”
That evening, they drove to her cottagea snug little house with frost-touched windows and a crackling hearth. Timothy kept to his room at first, timid as a mouse.
“Stop acting like a guest,” Edith chided. “Ask for what you need.”
He grew to love it therethe snowdrifts, the smell of baking, the quiet comfort. Weeks passed. The wheelchair was abandoned, then the crutches.
On his last hospital check-up, limping slightly, he walked beside her, fretting over exams.
“Take a deferral,” she insisted. “Your legs wont thank you for rushing.”
Theyd grown close. The thought of leaving twisted his heart.
Packing the next day, he turned to find her in the doorway, tears in her eyes.
“Stay, Tim,” she whispered.
He hugged her tightly.
And he stayed. Years later, she sat proudly as his mother at his wedding. And when his daughter was born, she cradled her granddaughterlittle Edithin her arms, smiling at last.
