Dawn had barely broken when Elizabeth dreamed something strangeher son, Alfie, stood on the porch, knocking at the door.
Startled, she jolted awake and rushed barefoot across the cold floor, bracing herself against the doorframe. Silence. No one there. These dreams had tricked her before, yet she always ran to the door and flung it open. This time was no different. She stepped out, peering into the empty night, the quiet pressing around her. Heart pounding, she sank onto the porch step, and in the stillness, a faint sounda whimper or a rustlecaught her ear.
“Bloody neighbour’s kitten again,” she muttered, heading toward the gooseberry bushes, as she had many times before. But it wasnt a kitten. Tugging at a scrap of cloth tangled in the thorns, she froze. The cloth was a faded baby blanket, and when she pulled harder, she found a tiny, naked boy beneath it. His umbilical stump still fresh, he couldnt have been more than a day old. Too weak to cry, drenched and shivering, he whimpered as she scooped him up.
Without thinking, she dashed inside, swaddling him in a clean sheet, tucking him under a warm quilt, then heating milk in an old bottle shed once used for an orphaned lamb. He gulped hungrily before drifting into sleep. Dawn crept in, but Elizabeth barely noticed, her mind racing. She was past forty now, the village women calling her “Auntie” with pity. Shed lost her husband and son in the war, same year, same grief. Loneliness had gnawed at her until shed grown used to its weight. But thisthis left her adrift.
The boy sighed in his sleep, peaceful as only infants are. She needed advice. Her neighbour Margaret had never known lossno husband, no children, no telegrams bearing bad news. She lived for herself, her lovers fleeting, her heart untouched. When Elizabeth found her stretching on her sunlit porch, wrapped in a shawl, Margaret listened, then shrugged. “Why dyou want the hassle?” Before turning inside, where the twitch of a curtain betrayed a guest.
*Why indeed?* Elizabeth packed food, wrapped the boy snugly, and trudged to the main road, flagging down a lorry headed to the city. “Hospital?” the driver asked, eyeing the bundle. “Hospital,” she replied.
At the orphanage, as paperwork blurred before her, guilt gnawed. The hollowness reminded her of the day shed buried her husband, then Alfie. “Whats his name?” the matron asked. Elizabeth hesitated. “Alfie,” she whispered, surprising herself.
“Lovely name. Plenty of Alfies and Emmas these dayswar orphans. But this one? Some mother, eh? Throwing away a blessing.” The words stung, though not meant for her.
Home by dusk, she lit the lamp. There, crumpled beside the hearth, lay Alfies old blanket. Fingers tracing its folds, she felt a knotinside, a tin cross on a string and a scrap of paper: *”Kind woman, forgive me. Ive lost my way. By sunrise, Ill be gone. Do for my son what I cannot.”* A birthdate followed.
Then came the tearstorrents shed thought long spent. Memories surged: her wedding day, Alfies birth, the way her husband had adored her. Before the war stole it all. The lorry hed promised to drive her in, the pride in their boys eyes when hed enlisted. Then the telegramsAugust 42, October 42and the world went grey. Nights spent flinging open the door, hoping. Always empty.
By morning, she was back at the orphanage. The matron didnt blink when Elizabeth said, “Im taking him home. My Alfie wouldve wanted it.”
Wrapped in blankets, little Alfie slept as they left. Her heart, so long hollow, felt differentlighter, alive. The photos of her husband and son on the wall seemed to smile now, approving. “Youll help me,” she told them.
Twenty years on, Alfie was a man any girl would fancy, though he chose only oneLucy, his match in every way. When he brought her home, Elizabeth knew: her boy was grown. At their wedding, she blessed them, and in time, grandchildren came. The youngest, another Alfie, filled her arms.
One stormy night, thunder rumbling, she woke and stepped outside. The old oak her husband had planted when Alfie was born swayed in the wind. Lightning flashedbright as her sons grin.
“Thank you,” she whispered to the dark. “Three Alfies now. All loved.”
The lesson? Even the deepest wounds can healif you let love in again.
