**Diary Entry, 12th November**
Tom sat in his wheelchair, staring through the grimy hospital window at the courtyard below. He hadnt been luckyhis room overlooked a quiet little garden with benches and flowerbeds, but hardly anyone visited, especially in winter. The place was empty.
Hed been alone in the ward for a week now. His old roommate, Jack Thompson, had been discharged, and Tom missed him terribly. Jack was lively, quick with a joke, and could spin a tale like a proper actorwhich, as it happened, he was, studying drama at university. With Jack around, boredom was impossible. His mother visited daily, bringing delicious homemade cakes, fruit, and sweets, which he always shared. Now, without him, the room felt colder, lonelier.
His brooding was interrupted by the nurses arrival. His heart sank. It wasnt the cheerful young nurse, Daisy, but stern, perpetually frowning Margaret. In two months here, Tom had never seen her smile. Her voice matched her expressionsharp, brusque, unpleasant.
“Youve been sitting too long, Carter. Back to bed,” she barked, syringe in hand.
Tom sighed, wheeled himself over, and let her help him lie down. With practised ease, she turned him onto his stomach.
“Trousers down.” He obeyedand barely felt a thing. For all her harshness, Margaret gave the smoothest injections.
*Wonder how old she is?* he thought, watching her examine his thin arm. *Retirement age, surely. Must be stuck working for a pittanceno wonder shes cross.*
The needle slipped in with barely a sting.
“Done. Has the doctor been round?” she asked unexpectedly as she tidied up.
“Not yet,” Tom muttered.
“Wait, then. And dont sit by the windowyoull catch a chill. Skinny as a rake as it is.”
He almost bristled, but something in her tonegruff yet oddly caringstopped him.
Tom was an orphan. His parents had died in a fire when he was four. His mother had thrown him from a window moments before the roof collapsed. The burn on his shoulder and his crooked wrist were the only reminders. Relatives existed, but none had wanted him.
From his mother, hed inherited gentle eyes, a dreamy nature; from his father, height, a loping stride, and a knack for maths. But memories were scarcefragments, really. A village fair. His fathers shoulders. A ginger cat called Marmalade.
No one visited him in hospital. At eighteen, the council gave him a bedsit on the fourth floor. Hed grown used to solitude, though sometimes the loneliness ached. Watching families together twisted something inside him.
Hed wanted uni but ended up at college instead. Quiet and bookish, he never quite fit in. Girls preferred the confident, chatty lads. At eighteen, he still looked sixteen.
Two months ago, rushing to class on icy pavement, hed slipped in an underpass and broken both legs. Healing had been slow, painful. Now, finally, the doctor declared him fit to leavebut his flat had no lift. How would he manage alone?
“Right, Carter,” Margaret said briskly later, tossing him his rucksack. “Pack up. Youre discharged.”
As he stuffed his few belongings in, she fixed him with a look.
“Whyd you lie to the doctor?”
“About what?”
“Dont play daft. No ones coming for you. How will you get home?”
“Ill manage.”
“You wont. You cant walk yet.”
Her gaze softened. “Stay with me. Ive a spare room. Countrysidequiet. Two steps at the door. Stay till youre back on your feet.”
Tom hesitated. She was practically a stranger. Yethadnt she always looked out for him? *”Eat your greens, Carter.” “Shut that window, youll freeze.”*
“Alright,” he said quietly. “ButIve no money.”
She scowled. “Dyou think Id charge you? Im not heartless.”
Her cottage was small, cosywooden beams, a crackling fire. At first, Tom kept to his room, shy.
“Stop moping,” she chided. “Ask if you need something.”
Gradually, he relaxed. The snow outside, the smell of her cookingit felt like home.
Weeks passed. The wheelchair went, then the crutches.
“Must catch up on exams,” he fretted one day as they walked back from the hospital.
“Take your time,” Margaret warned. “Doctors orders.”
He didnt want to leave. Shed become familymore than hed ever had.
The next morning, as he packed, he turned to find her in the doorway, crying.
Without thinking, he pulled her into a hug.
“Stay, lad,” she whispered.
He did.
Years later, she sat proud as “mother of the groom” at his wedding. And when his daughter was bornlittle Margaretshed never smiled so wide.
*Funny, how life works. Sometimes family finds you when you least expect it.*
