July 12th, 2023
I arrived at St. Bartholomews Hospital to see my dying husband. The air reeked of antiseptic, the corridors lined with faded notices and the quiet hum of suffering. My coatBurberry, cashmerefelt heavy on my shoulders. It had been years since wed spoken properly, Edwin and I. No divorce, just separate lives divided by contracts, silence, and enough money to make loneliness comfortable. When the solicitor rang to say hed taken a turn after the stroke, I hesitated. What was there left to say? Yet here I was, clutching my handbag like a shield.
At the ICU entrance, a scrawny girl of about ten sat on a bench, clutching a plastic cup. Her anorak was frayed, her trainers splitting at the seams. Without thinking, I pulled a few twenty-pound notes from my purse and dropped them beside her.
“Get yourself something proper to eat,” I muttered, already turning away.
She didnt scramble for the money. Just looked up with eyes too old for her face and said, soft as a prayer:
“Did you ever tell him you loved him?”
The words struck like a bolt. When I turned back, she was gonevanished, or so it seemed. The corridor swallowed her whole.
Edwins room was dim. His eyes were open but vacant, fixed on the window where rain streaked the glass. I sat beside him, took his cold hand in mine.
“Im sorry,” I whispered. “Kept thinking we had time. Then I stopped trying.”
His fingers twitchedonce. A nurse passing by glanced out the door.
“Odd,” she murmured. “Visitors need passes after hours.”
But the bench outside was empty.
Two days later, he was gone. At the funeral in Kensal Green, I didnt hide behind my sunglasses. Let them talkthe icy widow finally thawed. I gave half the estate to childrens charities. The papers called it guilt. Let them.
A month on, I returned to the hospital. There, by the memorial plaque (For those who left too soon), stood the girl. Same tattered jacket, same knowing gaze.
“You listened,” she said.
“Youre not just a child,” I breathed.
She smiled, thengone. Like mist.
The old porter shook his head when I asked. “That lass? Died years back. No family. No one came.”
Tonight, I found a childs drawing slipped under my door: stick-figure parents holding hands, a winged girl beside them. On the back, two words: *You did.*
Come spring, I sat on that bench one last time. The girl appeared beside mereal as rain.
“Who *are* you?” I asked.
“Does it matter?” She touched my hand. “Youre alive now.”
And I understood. She was the part of me Id buried beneath balance sheets and bitterness.
Now, when I read to orphans in Croydon or ladle soup in Whitechapel, I hear her voice in my ribs: *You did.*
Funny, isnt it? A beggars questionfour wordscost me a fortune. And made me rich.
