The ward smelled of cheap medicine, boiled cabbage, and age—so thick and heavy it felt as if you could scoop it up with a spoon. Lydia Bennett sat 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 by the kitchen window at home. Back when she still had a home…
On the neighbouring cot sat a woman at least twenty years her senior, still as a statue, staring blankly at the wall as if it were a window to another world.
Then, slowly, the old woman rose, clutched a chair, and dragged it over to Lydia.
“Lydia, dear,” she rasped, sinking down beside her, “tell me… how did you end up here?” Her faded eyes held the same helplessness as a child’s—as if she weren’t an old woman at all, but a little girl long abandoned by the world.
Lydia almost brushed her off. Almost said, *What’s the point? You won’t understand, won’t remember.* But instead, she spoke. Because for the first time in ages, someone actually wanted to listen.
“It started with silence,” Lydia’s voice wavered. “First, Edward stopped calling as often. A meeting, his grandson’s football practice, always something. And Eleanor, his wife—well, she never cared much for me. As for Jamie, my grandson… he’s got his own life now. I understand.”
Her neighbour leaned forward slightly, nodding. She’d been in the care home three years—every story felt like her own.
“Then they stopped remembering. My birthday came and went—just another day. Then Mother’s Day. Then Christmas. And I… I still waited. Baked an apple pie—the kind Edward loved as a boy. Set the table. Put out an old photo of us at Brighton beach. Him in little trunks, me in that yellow sundress, laughing. I stared at it and thought… *They’ll come. They have to. They promised.*”
Lydia sighed deeply. The corners of her eyes glistened. The old woman touched her shoulder gently.
“They came. Late. Stood in the hallway, Edward staring at the floor. ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘we’ve talked, and…’ The rest was a blur. Just his words ringing in my ears—’Jamie needs his own room. And you… you’ll be better off here. Proper care, your medicine, routine…'”
“And what did you say?” the old woman whispered.
“What could I say?” Lydia gave a bitter laugh. “I just stammered, ‘But I… I’m…’ And that was it. They’d decided. Movers. Boxes. My mahogany bookshelf—the one with the carved leaves—carried right past me. I reached for it, and Jamie just sat there, glued to his phone. No glance. No goodbye. No thanks. Like I’d never existed.”
“Do they call now?”
“Edward rang yesterday.” Another hollow chuckle. “Asked how I was. And I said, ‘Remember how you’d crawl into my bed during thunderstorms? Shaking like a leaf?’ And he said… ‘No. I don’t.'” Her voice cracked. “Either he’s lying, or he really doesn’t.”
The old woman took her hand—warm, bony, knotted. Said nothing.
“You know what’s almost funny?” Lydia went on. “They’ve rented out my flat. Said the money’s for Jamie’s tutoring. ‘Waste to leave it empty.’ Now there’s a yoga studio there. ‘Vinyasa flow,’ or some such. And all I can think—where my china cabinet stood, strangers are stretching in downward dog.”
The trolley of supper trays creaked down the corridor. Outside, the sun dipped low, staining everything blood-orange. The silence pressed in, thick and suffocating.
“But *I* remember,” Lydia whispered. “All of it. His first tooth. Rocking him through fevers. The day he cried over a B in maths. How I prayed he’d grow up happy. I gave everything. And now… now I’m just in the way.”
The old woman wrapped an arm around her shoulders, resting her cheek against Lydia’s grey hair. Her hand—the same rough, papery texture as Lydia’s own mother’s—couldn’t save her from this loneliness.
They sat quietly in the dim ward, suspended between a past that had been warm and a present that was only shadows.
One thought gnawed at Lydia:
*What if they remember me after all?*
