For two weeks, a cat kept turning up at the window. The staff couldnt believe it when they found out why.
Emily, fresh out of nursing school, burst into the break room, cheeks flushed and eyes shining. “Margaret! You wont believe ithes back again!”
“Whos *he*?” sighed Margaret, rubbing her temples. The night shift had been exhausting, and now this?
“The cat! Grey, with one white ear Hes been sitting there for ages! Comes every single day, can you imagine?”
“Every *single* day?”
Margaret, the head of intensive care, flipped through her patient charts. The new arrival in Ward Four still hadnt woken upfourteen days in a coma after being hit on a pedestrian crossing. Some reckless driver had run a red light. As if they didnt have enough to deal with already.
Emily perched on the edge of a chair. “Two weeks now. He just sits by the window where Mrs. Thompson is. The porters shoo him away, but he keeps coming back. Weve started calling him the Night Shift Cat.”
Margaret rolled her eyesjust what they needed, a stray causing trouble. But something in Emilys voice made her get up and look.
There he wasa grey cat with one white ear, perched on the windowsill. Thin, but clearly no stray; his fur was scruffy but well-kept. He sat like a sentry, staring unblinking into the ward where the new patient lay.
“Good grief,” Margaret muttered. “Weve got a woman fighting for her life, and were fussing over a cat?”
Still, something nagged at her. That stubborn devotionhow many people could say theyd shown the same?
“What do we know about the patient?” she asked suddenly.
Emily shrugged. “Not much. Mrs. Thompson, fifty-two. Lives alone, her daughter visits sometimes. She was hit right outside her building.”
“Which building?”
“That grey one just past the hospital car park.”
Margaret glanced back at the cat. He turned his head, as if sensing her gaze. Something in his steady stare sent a shiver down her spine.
The answer came unexpectedlylater that day, Mrs. Thompsons daughter brought in her mothers medical records. A photo slipped out: Mrs. Thompson in her armchair, cradling a grey cat with one white ear.
“Is that?” Margarets voice wavered.
The daughter choked up. “Thats Whiskers. Mums cat. He went missing two years agodarted out when the plumbers left the door open. She put up posters, searched everywhere” She wiped her eyes. “She even refused to move. Said, *What if Whiskers comes back? How will he find me?*”
Margaret felt a chill. So the cat *had* found herjust too late. Maybe hed been nearby when the ambulance took her. Maybe hed followed it here, peering into windows until he found the right one.
“Where does she live?” Margaret asked.
“Just there, behind the hospital. The grey block of flats”
A sudden alarm from Mrs. Thompsons monitor cut through the ward. They rushed inMargaret, Emily, the daughterjust as the machine showed the first signs of her waking. The cat, of course, was forgotten.
When Mrs. Thompson finally opened her eyes, everything was a blurbright lights, voices, beeping machines.
“Mum!” her daughter cried. “Mum, can you hear me?”
Mrs. Thompson managed a weak nod. Speaking was impossibleher throat raw from tubes.
“Easy now,” Margaret soothed. “Dont rush. Youre doing brilliantly.”
Later, her daughter squeezed her hand, smiling through tears. “Mum, Ive got the most wonderful surprise Whiskers is back!”
Mrs. Thompsons eyes widenedrecognition, disbelief, joy.
“Stay still,” Margaret warned gently. “No excitement yet.”
“You wont believe it,” her daughter whispered. “He *found* you. Sat by your window every day. When I brought your photo, the nurses recognised him straightaway.”
Tears spilled down Mrs. Thompsons cheeks.
“I took him home,” her daughter continued. “At first, he kept trying to come back here. But weve struck a dealI bring him to see you every day, once youre well enough.”
When Mrs. Thompson was moved to a regular ward, her daughter arrived with a large carrier bag, from which came indignant yowling.
“No pets allowed!” snapped a porter.
But Margaret just waved a hand. “Let it go. That cats earned his place here more than most.”
Irene, another nurse, shook her head. “We thought we were imagining things.”
“You werent,” Margaret said softly. “Sometimes love outlasts anythingeven time.”
“Hold still,” her daughter cooed, extracting a disgruntled Whiskers. “Youll see Mum in a second”
The cat froze, sniffed the airthen shot onto the bed in a blur of paws.
“Careful!” Margaret gaspedbut it was too late.
Whiskers was already nuzzling Mrs. Thompsons face, purring loud enough to echo down the corridor. And sheshe laughed and cried at once, her trembling hand stroking his fur.
“My goodness,” Irene murmured, wiping her eyes. “Like something out of a film.”
From then on, her daughter visited daily. Strangely, Whiskers seemed to *know* when it was timepromptly at four, hed pace by the door, yowling impatiently.
“How do you even tell the time?” her daughter laughed. “Got a secret watch?”
Hed just flick his tail, as if saying, *Hurry up, Mums waiting.*
“You know,” Margaret mused one day, watching them, “in twenty years of medicine, Ive seen a lot. But *this*”
She trailed off, then added quietly, “We humans could learn a thing or two about loyalty.”
Back home, Whiskers curled up beside Mrs. Thompsons bedjust like old times, as if those two years apart had never happened. And Margaret? Well, she saw things differently now. Whenever someone claimed animals didnt love, or that miracles werent real, shed just smile.
After all, the truest magic didnt come from fairy talesit came from love.
And every time she passed that grey block of flats, shed glance up at the third-floor window. There, more often than not, was a familiar silhouette: Whiskers, basking in the sun, squinting with pure contentment.
