For two weeks, a cat had been coming to the window. The staff couldnt believe it when they learned the reason.
One evening, Emilyfresh out of nursing schoolburst into the duty room, her eyes bright and cheeks flushed.
“Margaret! Youll never guesshes back again!”
“Whos ‘he’?” The matron rubbed her temples wearily. The night shift had been gruelling, and now this
“The cat! Grey, with one white ear Hes been sitting there for an hour! And he comes every single day, can you imagine?”
“Every day?”
Margaret, the head of the intensive care unit, shuffled through patient files before her rounds. Their newest patient in Ward Four still hadnt regained consciousnessfourteen days in a coma after being struck on a zebra crossing. Some reckless driver had run a red light As if they didnt have enough to manage with scheduled cases.
Emily perched on the edge of a chair.
“Hes been coming for two weeks. Right to the window of Mrs. Anne Whitmores room. Just sits and stares The orderlies shoo him away, but he always comes back. Weve started calling him the Night Watchman.”
Margaret frownedas if they needed stray animals adding to the chaos. She meant to scold the young nurse, but there was too much work. Still, something in Emilys voice made her rise and walk to the window.
There, on the sill, sat a cat. Grey, with one white earjust as Emily had said. Thin, but unmistakably once a pet: his fur was matted, but clearly well-kept in the past. He sat oddly upright, like a sentry on duty, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on the window where their newest patient lay.
“Good heavens, what nonsense,” Margaret muttered. “Weve a woman between life and death, and were fussing over a cat”
Yet something nagged at her. Perhaps it was the cats stubborn refusal to leave, no matter how often he was chased away. What devotion! Not even every human could claim such loyalty.
“What do we know about this patient?” she asked suddenly.
Emily shrugged. “Almost nothing. Anne Whitmore, fifty-two. Lives alone, visited occasionally by her daughter. She was hit on the crossing just outside her home”
“Which home?”
“That grey block of flats,” Emily gestured toward the window. “Just past the hospital fence.”
Margaret looked back at the cat. It turned its head as if sensing her stare. A shiver ran down her spine at the intensity of its gaze.
The answer came unexpectedly later that day, when Annes daughter brought in medical records. A photograph slipped from the folderAnne seated in an armchair, cradling a grey cat with one white ear.
“This” Margarets voice wavered. “Who is this?”
The daughter choked back a sob. “Thats Whiskers. Mums cat. He went missing two years agodarted out when the plumbers left the door open. She papered the neighbourhood with posters, searched every alley” She wiped her eyes. “She even refused to move. Said, ‘What if Whiskers comes back? How will he find me?'”
A chill ran through Margaret. So the cat *had* found herbut too late. Perhaps hed been nearby when Anne was struck, trailing the ambulance to the hospital. How hed pinpointed her window, she couldnt guesspeering into countless others until he saw her.
“Where where does she live?” Margaret asked.
“Just there, behind the hospital. That grey block of flats”
At that moment, the wards monitors shrieked. They ranMargaret, Emily, the daughterto Annes bedside. The cardiograph showed the first flickers of awakening. The cat, of course, was forgotten.
When Anne first opened her eyes, doctors swarmed around her. Bright lights, voices, the beep of machines Everything blurred.
“Mum!” Her daughter, Lucy, clutched her hand. “Mum, can you hear us?”
Anne managed a weak nod. Speech was still beyond herher throat raw from tubes.
“Easy now,” Margaret soothed. “No rush. Youve done brilliantly”
Later, Lucy sat holding her mothers hand, tearful but smiling. “Mum, Ive a surprise. You wont believe it Whiskers is back!”
Anne stiffened, eyes widening with recognition, disbelief, then joy.
“Now, now,” Margaret cautioned gently. “No excitement yet.”
“Imagine, Mum,” Lucy stroked her hand, “he found you himself! Came every day, sat by your window The doctors noticed. When I brought your photo, they knew straightaway!”
Tears spilled down Annes cheeks.
“Ive taken him in,” Lucy continued. “At first he wouldnt leave the hospital, kept trying to return. But weve an understandingIll bring him daily once youre allowed visitors”
When Anne was moved to a general ward, Lucy arrived with a large carrier, from which issued indignant yowls.
“No pets allowed!” snapped an orderly.
Margaret waved her off. “Let him stay. That cats earned his place more than most.”
“Well I never” muttered Emily, watching. “And we thought it was just coincidence.”
“Nothing coincidental about it,” Margaret said softly. “Sometimes love outlasts every obstacleeven time.”
“Easy now,” Lucy coaxed, extracting a disgruntled Whiskers. “Youll see Mum in a moment”
The cat froze, sniffedthen bolted for the bed in a blur.
“Careful!” Margaret cried, but it was too late.
Whiskers was already nuzzling Annes cheek, purring loud enough to echo down the corridor. And sheshe laughed and wept at once, her trembling hand stroking his fur.
“My word,” Emily whispered, dabbing her eyes, “its like something from the pictures”
From then on, Lucy visited daily. To her amazement, Whiskers seemed to know the exact hourpromptly at four, hed pace by the door, yowling impatiently.
“How do you know?” she marvelled. “Can you read clocks now?”
Hed only flick his tail, as if urging, *Hurry up, Mums waiting.*
“You know,” Margaret remarked one day, watching them, “in twenty years of medicine, Ive seen much. But this” She trailed off, then added, “We humans could stand to learn such devotion.”
At home, once Anne was recovered, Whiskers curled beside her as if those two lost years had never been. As if thered been no coma, no hospital, no long vigil by a window
And Margaret? She sees the world differently now. When folk claim animals dont love, or that miracles dont happen, she simply smiles. For she knows: the truest magic isnt woven by wandsits woven by love.
And whenever she passes that grey block of flats, her eyes lift to a third-floor window. There, often, sits a familiar silhouetteWhiskers basking in the sun, blinking slowly with contentment.
