He tugs me forward and we crawl into the snug fort, one on either side of Dad. We burrow down into the blankets as Danny opens the book and begins to read in that delicious low Northern burr of his and holy cow, why don’t I get him to read to me more often? His voice is all kinds of delicious.
I glance over to the open door of the bedroom and see Lois leaning against the doorframe, watching us, a soft smile playing across her lips. She sends me a wink and disappears down the corridor, leaving me to settle back and let Danny’s voice wash over me. After a moment, Dad turns over onto his side and burrows into me. Wrapping my arms around him, I pull him in close, close my eyes, and breathe in the familiar scent of him with a painful pang. For just a brief second, I’m once again that small boy in his fort with his dad. Now, in many ways I’m the adult and he’s the child, but we’re still together, and that’s all that matters.
Dad reaches up unconsciously and twirls a curling lock of my dark hair, listening to the story even though he’s not really taking it in.
Surrounded by the warmth and comfort of the two who mean the most to me in the entire world, I lose myself in the story as Lucy and Edmund join Prince Caspian onboard the Dawn Treader for a high seas adventure.
Slowly, Danny’s voice trails off, replaced with Dad's deep exhausted snore. I glance over his frail body and my eyes lock on Danny. He gives me a small smile and I nod. Ever so carefully, we slide out of the fort and remove the blankets so we can reach Dad easily. I cross the room and pull back the bedding, watching as Danny effortlessly lifts Dad's slight form from the floor and settles him in bed.
I lift the nightlight and set it on his bedside table so it casts starlight on the ceiling for him even in his sleep while Danny puts the chairs back in place and folds the blankets neatly. I’m just tucking Dad in as he joins me.
“Night, Martin. Sweet dreams.” He pats one frail hand gently so as not to wake him.
Leaning forward, I kiss my dad's forehead. “Night, Dad. Love you lots like Jelly Tots,” I mutter. Admittedly, it would probably sound childish to anyone on the outside looking in, but it was always our thing. It was what Mum always used to say to me when she tucked me into bed at night.
Taking Danny’s hand, I step out into the empty corridor and close the door behind us with a quiet click. I release the breath I didn’t realise I was holding, my head folding into Danny’s broad chest as his arms come around me, and I feel him drop a kiss on my head.
He rubs my arms comfortingly. “Are you okay, love?”
“Yeah,” I sigh.
I am, it’s been a good day, but I feel absolutely drained. Suddenly I shiver as a cold draught blasts down the still corridor, rippling my hair and sending shivers down my spine. I look up sharply and turn my head to glance down the hall, the feeling from earlier in the day returning full force.
“Did you–” I frown, looking up as the fluorescent tube lighting flickers with an insect-like hum.
“What is it?” Danny asks.
I’m about to answer when I see a dark shadow rush past the end of the corridor and disappear into the adjacent one. My stomach jolts sharply and my heart pounds. There’s no way I just saw what I thought I saw.
Without thinking, I hurry past several rooms and turn the corner, then draw up so sharply Danny almost crashes into the back of me. My mouth falls open at the sight of the shadow in a doorway, hovering a couple of feet above the ground for a moment before drifting into the room and disappearing.
I dash forward to the doorway, but the shadow is gone. The softly lit room is only occupied by a couple of sombre-looking staff members, including Lois.
“Lois, what’s going on?”
“Mrs Abernathy just passed away,” she says sadly, moving aside to reveal a little old lady laying serenely on her bed.
I recognise the tiny woman, she often sat beside my dad in the dayroom. They didn’t talk, given that my dad has vascular dementia and Delores has Alzheimer’s, but they often gravitated to each other for some unknown reason.
Delores Abernathy had been a sweet little old lady. At over ninety-five years old, she was tiny but not as frail as you might think. She still went out twice a week to meet with her friends at the community hall in Clapham, under the watchful eye of one of the carers, of course. Delores had advanced Alzheimer’s and was quiet more often than not, but on the rare occasions she did speak, she was trapped in the past, remembering family and friends that were long since gone and a war that most of us are too young to remember.
She’s laying out on top of her neatly made bed, fully dressed and wearing sensible laced shoes over mismatched argyle socks, one red and one blue, which are pulled all the way up her skinny ankles. Her skirt is a thick pleated charcoal grey, and her white blouse is neatly tucked into the waistband and covered by a pale pink cardigan decorated with embroidered rosebuds that is buttoned all the way up to the collar. Her cloud of silver white hair is combed neatly into waves beneath a brightly coloured pink hat which looks like a tea cosy.
She’s lying on her back, feet together, her face in calm repose and her hands tucked neatly over the clutch of her black leather handbag, which she was never without. I wish I’d known more about the little old woman who always seemed to keep silent company with my father.
“Why is she dressed?” I ask as I look up at Lois. It’s way past the residents' bedtime and yet she looks like she’s dressed to go out and is simply waiting to be picked up.
“It wasn’t unusual for her.” Lois plucks a tissue from her uniform pocket and wipes her eyes, sniffling quietly. “She would get confused; she couldn’t keep time. If she woke up, she would decide it was time to get up and would get herself dressed. Quite often, we’d find her wandering the corridors in her shoes and socks with her heavy winter coat buttoned over her nightdress.”
“I’m so sorry, Lois,” I whisper as I glance down at the old lady.
“It’s part of the job,” she sighs. “It doesn’t get any easier, but it was obviously just her time.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I ask, aware Danny is hovering quietly behind me.
“No, love.” She shakes her head and gives a teary smile. “Thank you, but we have the on-call doctor stopping by to call time of death, and we’ve called Delores’ niece in.”
I’m just about to open my mouth when a large brusque man jostles into the room wearing evening dress and looking quite put out beneath his bushy eyebrows and moustache.
