“Connie, are you out of your mind? Do you think I’m inviting you to live with me for money? I just feel sorry for you, thats all.”
Connie sat in his wheelchair, staring through the dusty hospital window at the courtyard below. He wasnt luckyhis room overlooked the quiet inner garden, where a few benches and flowerbeds stood empty, especially now in winter.
He had been alone for a week since his roommate, Jack Turner, had been discharged. Jack had been lively, quick with a joke, and always had some theatrical story to tellno surprise, since he was studying acting at drama school. With him gone, the room felt colder, lonelier.
His thoughts were interrupted when Nurse Edith stepped in. Connies heart sankinstead of the friendly young nurse Emma, it was stern, unsmiling Edith. In two months, hed never seen her laugh. Her voice matched her expressionsharp, rough, and unyielding.
“Enough lounging. Back to bed!” she snapped, syringe in hand.
Connie sighed, obediently wheeled himself over, and let her help him onto the mattress. Edith flipped him onto his stomach with practiced efficiency.
“Trousers down,” she ordered.
Connie complied, bracing himselfbut the injection was quick, painless. He winced slightly as the needle slid in.
“Done. Has the doctor been by?” she asked, already packing up.
“Not yet,” Connie murmured.
“Then wait. And dont sit by the windowyoull catch a chill, skinny as you are.”
He almost bristled, but something in her tone stopped him. Beneath the gruffness, he thought he heard care.
Connie was an orphan. His parents had died in a house fire when he was fourhis mother had thrown him from a window just before the roof collapsed. The burns on his shoulder and wrist were the only reminders he had left. No relatives had taken him in, so hed grown up in care homes.
He had his mothers gentle nature and dreamy green eyes, his fathers height and talent for maths. But memories of them were faintjust snippets, like sitting on his dads shoulders in the summer breeze, or waving a flag at a village fair. He barely remembered the family cat, a ginger tabby called Whiskers or maybe Tiger.
No one visited him in the hospital. At eighteen, hed been given a small flat in a council buildingfourth floor, no lift. Hed grown used to solitude, but sometimes the loneliness ached.
After school, hed wanted to go to university, but his grades fell short. Instead, he studied at a technical college, where he kept to himself, preferring books to parties. He was quiet, awkwarda “black sheep,” though it never bothered him.
Two months ago, rushing to class, hed slipped in an icy underpass and broken both legs. The fractures were bad, slow to heal. Now, finally, the doctor declared him fit to leavebut Connie dreaded returning to his inaccessible flat.
“Someone picking you up?” the doctor asked.
Connie nodded, lying.
Nurse Edith saw right through him. “Whos coming for you?” she demanded.
“Ill manage,” he muttered.
“You wont. You cant walk yet.” She sat beside him, softening. “Connie, youll need help. Stay with me.”
He hesitated. She was practically a stranger. But then he rememberedher bringing him extra pudding, scolding him to eat his cheese for calcium. The only person whod ever really noticed him.
“I dont have money,” he admitted.
She scoffed. “You think Id charge you? Im offering because I want to.”
And so he went home with hera small cottage with a spare room. At first, he barely left it, too shy to ask for anything. But Edith wouldnt have it. “Stop acting like a guest,” she told him.
Slowly, he healed. The wheelchair gave way to crutches, then a cane. When it was time to leave, he hesitated at the door.
“Stay,” Edith whispered, tears in her eyes.
And he did. Years later, she sat as mother of the groom at his wedding. And when his daughter was born, he named her Edith.
Sometimes, family isnt bloodits the people who choose you.
