The ward smelled of cheap medicine, boiled cabbage, and old age—so thick and heavy it felt like you could scoop it up with a spoon. Margaret Hayes perched on the edge of her bed, fiddling with the frayed hem of her faded dressing gown—the same one she used to wear while sipping tea at her kitchen window. At home. Back when she still had a home…
On the neighbouring bed sat a woman at least twenty years older, still as a statue, staring into nothing. Her dull gaze fixed on the wall as if it were a window to another world.
Then, slowly, she rose, clutched a chair, and dragged it closer to Margaret.
“Margot, love… tell me—how’d you end up here?” the old woman rasped, sinking down beside her. Her faded eyes held the same helplessness as a child’s, as though she weren’t an old woman at all, but a girl the world had long forgotten.
Margaret almost waved her off. *She won’t understand, won’t listen, won’t remember.* But instead, she spoke. Because for the first time in ages, someone actually wanted to hear her.
“It started with silence,” she murmured, voice trembling. “At first, James rang less and less. A meeting, then his son’s football practice, then just… he never got round to it. His wife, Claire, never much cared for me. And my grandson, Freddie—well, boys his age don’t spare a thought for their nan. I understood.”
The old woman leaned in, nodding. She’d been here three years—every story sounded like her own.
“Then they stopped calling altogether. My birthday came and went. Then Mother’s Day. Even Christmas. And I… I waited. Baked a Victoria sponge—just how James liked it as a boy. Laid the table. Set out that old photo of us at Brighton. Him in his little shorts, me laughing, still young. I’d stare at it and think: *They’ll come. They have to. They promised.*”
Margaret exhaled shakily. The old woman’s bony hand brushed her shoulder.
“They came. Late. James stood in the hallway, eyes fixed on the floor. ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘we’ve decided…’ The rest was a blur. But his words stuck like a verdict: ‘Freddie needs his own room. And you—you’ll be better off here. Care, medicine, routine…’”
“What did you say?” the old woman whispered.
“What could I say?” Margaret gave a wry smile. “I just stammered, ‘But I—I…’ But it was done. Men with boxes. My walnut dresser—the one with the carvings—carried off. I reached for it, but Freddie was glued to his phone. Not a glance. Not a ‘goodbye,’ not a ‘thank you.’ Like I’d never existed.”
“Do they call now?”
“James rang yesterday,” Margaret said bitterly. “Asked how I was. I said, ‘Remember how you’d crawl into my bed during thunderstorms? Trembling like a little sparrow…’ He said, ‘No, I don’t.’ Just like that. *Doesn’t remember.* Or won’t.”
The old woman squeezed her hand—gnarled, warm, just like Margaret’s own mother’s once was. Silent.
“Know what’s almost funny?” Margaret whispered. “They’re renting out my flat. The money’s for Freddie’s tutors. ‘No sense leaving it empty,’ James said. It’s a yoga studio now—‘Vinyasa,’ or some such. Can you picture it? Where my sideboard stood, women twist themselves on mats…”
The trolley of dinner trays squeaked down the hall. Outside, the sun bled orange across the sky. Too quiet.
“But I remember everything,” Margaret breathed. “His first tooth. Rocking him to sleep. The time he cried over a B in maths. How I dreamed he’d grow up happy. I gave everything. And now… now I’m just in the way.”
The old woman pulled her close, resting her papery cheek against Margaret’s grey head. Her hands—rough, warm, just like Mum’s—couldn’t save her from this.
They sat in the dim ward, between the past’s warmth and the present’s hollow silence.
One thought wouldn’t leave her:
*What if they remember?*
