Still Here
Harper
The trouble with living thirty-seven seconds from work was that being late became personal.
If I left my house at exactly seven twenty-nine, I could be through Willowmere’s front door by seven thirty.
Thirty-one seconds if I cut across Mrs Patel’s front garden.
Which I wasn’t supposed to do.
Mrs Patel had once chased me down the street with a watering can and a level of determination I deeply respected.
I locked my front door and checked it twice.
Then a third time.
The front gate squeaked as I pushed it open.
I’d been meaning to fix it for nearly a year.
The gate and I had reached an understanding.
It squeaked.
I ignored it.
Life carried on.
The morning air was cool enough to make me pull my cardigan tighter around myself.
It wasn’t really my cardigan.
It had belonged to somebody else first.
Like most things I owned.
The sleeves were slightly too long and one of the buttons didn’t match the others.
I liked it anyway.
By the time I reached Willowmere, the kitchen lights were already on.
The building sat at the end of Hawthorne Lane exactly where it always had, red brick glowing softly in the morning light.
I paused for a second before going inside.
Not because I was sentimental.
Because I’d forgotten whether I’d fed the spider in my kitchen.
I decided it would probably survive until lunch.
Then I pushed through the door.
The smell hit me immediately.
Toast.
Furniture polish.
Tea.
The faint scent of lavender air freshener that Julia insisted made the place feel welcoming.
After six years, I barely noticed it anymore.
“Morning, Harper.”
I looked up.
Julia stood behind reception holding a clipboard.
She was wearing glasses she’d spent the last three years insisting she didn’t need.
Her dark hair was twisted into a loose knot at the back of her head.
“Morning.”
“You’re early.”
“I live thirty-seven seconds away.”
“Thirty-six if you stop taking dramatic pauses outside.”
I smiled.
Julia smiled back.
That was usually how our mornings started.
I hung my coat on the staff hook.
The noticeboard beside it was covered in posters, rotas and laminated information sheets.
I glanced at one.
Then another.
Then immediately looked away again.
Far too many words before breakfast.
“There’s paperwork on your desk.”
I stopped moving.
Julia looked up from her clipboard.
I looked at the floor.
“Harper.”
“I’m listening.”
“No, you’re not.”
“That’s hurtful.”
“Paperwork.”
I sighed.
Julia nodded.
She knew she’d won.
Unfortunately, she usually did.
I picked up the folder from the desk and opened it.
The first page contained several paragraphs.
The second page contained even more.
The third page looked like it had been written by somebody who hated happiness.
I read the first line.
Then the second.
Then accidentally the fourth.
The words shuffled themselves around the page.
I frowned.
Read it again.
A little slower.
A call bell rang somewhere down the corridor.
Perfect.
An emergency.
Possibly.
I closed the folder immediately.
Julia watched me.
“Harper.”
“It could be important.”
“It could be Frank wanting somebody to move his television three inches to the left again.”
“Still important.”
Julia shook her head.
There wasn’t much point arguing.
We both knew I wasn’t touching that paperwork until absolutely necessary.
As I headed towards the corridor she called after me.
“Oh, and Harper?”
I turned.
Julia’s expression softened slightly.
“Five years today.”
For a second I didn’t understand what she meant.
Then I did.
Five years.
Exactly.
I swallowed.
“Oh.”
“Will you be alright?”
The call bell rang again.
Frank.
Definitely Frank.
The timing felt suspicious.
I looked towards the corridor.
Then back at Julia.
“Yeah.”
It came out a little too quickly.
Julia didn’t challenge it.
She never pushed when it came to things like that.
“Alright,” she said gently.
And that was that.
No long conversation.
No pity.
One of the reasons I loved her.
I headed down the corridor towards Frank’s room.
Past the photographs lining the walls.
Past the lounge.
Past the room that had belonged to my grandmother.
I still glanced at the door every morning.
Six years later.
Some habits stayed.
Even when the people didn’t.
Frank’s emergency indeed did turn out to be the television.
Again.
Apparently the angle was wrong.
I’d moved it approximately two inches before he declared it perfect.
I wasn’t convinced there had been any actual change.
Frank seemed happy though.
Which was the important thing.
By nine o’clock I’d made six cups of tea, located a missing hearing aid, and successfully prevented Peter from taking apart a lamp.
The morning was going well.
For Willowmere, anyway.
I found Mrs Carter in the lounge.
She was sitting in her usual chair by the window with both slippers on.
A rare achievement.
She looked up as I approached.
“What’s wrong with your face?”
I blinked.
“My face?”
“You’re thinking.”
“Oh.”
“Never a good sign.”
I sat down in the empty chair beside her.
Mrs Carter narrowed her eyes.
That was another thing she was good at.
Looking at people until they told her things.
I’d seen her do it to staff, visitors and once a priest.
The priest cracked after thirty seconds.
I lasted about a minute.
“It’s been five years today.”
Mrs Carter frowned.
“Five years since what?”
“My mum leaving.”
The words felt strangely ordinary.
Like I was talking about the weather.
Maybe because I’d had five years to get used to them.
Mrs Carter’s expression darkened immediately.
“Oh.”
I looked out of the window.
A blackbird was hopping across the garden.
“Julia reminded me.”
“Of course she did.”
I shrugged.
There didn’t seem much else to do.
“My life’s not exactly different today.”
Mrs Carter made a noise that suggested she disagreed with the entire concept.
“Your mother was an idiot.”
I laughed despite myself.
“Mrs Carter.”
“What?”
“You can’t call people idiots.”
“I can.”
“She’s my mum.”
“Exactly.”
I looked over at her.
Mrs Carter folded her arms.
“If your grandmother knew what happened, she’d come back just to throttle her.”
I snorted.
The image was ridiculous.
And surprisingly easy to imagine.
My grandmother had only been about five foot two, but she’d never seemed particularly concerned about things like size or consequences.
“She would not.”
“She absolutely would.”
Mrs Carter pointed a finger at me.
“That woman adored you.”
My smile faded slightly.
I looked down at my hands.
“Yeah.”
“She did.”
For a moment neither of us spoke.
The lounge carried on around us.
Arthur turned a page somewhere behind us.
A teaspoon clinked against a mug.
Frank complained about something.
Probably the same thing as before.
“Your gran would’ve been proud of you, you know.”
I stared out of the window.
The blackbird had disappeared.
“I don’t know about that.”
Mrs Carter looked horrified.
Actually horrified.
Like I’d just suggested setting fire to the building.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I laughed softly.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Mrs Carter’s voice softened.
Only a little.
“You’re here every day looking after everybody.”
She gestured around the room.
“Half of us would be lost without you.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“No.”
“It is.”
I sighed.
This was pointless.
Mrs Carter was stubborn enough to argue with gravity.
When she believed something, there was no moving her.
“Fine.”
“Good.”
She settled back into her chair.
Conversation over.
Then, after a moment:
“Still think your mother’s an idiot.”
That made me laugh properly.
Mrs Carter looked pleased with herself.
Which was unfortunate.
Because now she’d be impossible for the rest of the day.
I escaped to the staff room a few minutes later under the pretence of making tea.
The tea was mostly an excuse.
The staff room was empty apart from Tiffany. She was sitting at the table scrolling through her phone with a mug balanced beside her. A half-eaten biscuit rested on a napkin.
I immediately considered stealing it.
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You were thinking about it.”
I sat down opposite her.
A folder sat in the middle of the table.
Waiting.
I recognised it immediately.
Unfortunately.
“Julia left that for you.”
Of course she had.
I stared at the folder.
The folder stared back.
Tiffany followed my gaze.
“Want me to do it?”
“No.”
“Harper.”
“I can do it.”
She held up both hands.
“Alright.”
The room fell quiet.
I opened the folder.
There were only two pages.
Which sounded encouraging until I looked at them.
Boxes.
Questions.
Paragraphs.
Instructions.
The sort of form that seemed simple until the words started moving around.
I read the first section.
Then the second.
Then accidentally the first again.
My pen hovered over the page.
The answer was in my head.
That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was getting it onto paper without second-guessing every word.
Beside me, Tiffany pretended not to watch.
I appreciated that.
I managed half a sentence.
Stopped.
Read it again.
Crossed out a word.
Wrote another.
Didn’t like that one either.
Eventually I let out a breath.
“Tiff?”
“Yeah?”
I slid the folder across the table.
“Can you just…”
“Of course.”
No fuss.
No sympathy.
No awkwardness.
Just Tiffany picking up a pen like she’d done it a hundred times before.
Which she probably had.
I wrapped both hands around my mug.
“One day I’m going to fill one of those out myself.”
Tiffany didn’t look up from the page.
“You will.”
The annoying thing was that she sounded like she meant it.
The rest of the morning disappeared the way it always did.
One minute it was nine o’clock.
The next somebody was asking what happened to the biscuits and Frank was complaining about the weather.
I wasn’t entirely sure those events were related.
Though with Frank, you could never be certain.
Peter spent twenty minutes hovering suspiciously close to the clock in the lounge before I confiscated his screwdriver.
He looked personally offended.
“You’re treating me like a criminal.”
“You took apart the television remote last week.”
“It wasn’t working properly.”
“It was.”
“It worked better afterwards.”
It definitely hadn’t.
I kept the screwdriver anyway.
By lunchtime the rain had started.
Soft drops tapping against the windows while residents drifted towards the dining room.
Arthur carried his book with him.
Elsie had changed her lipstick.
Frank was already complaining about the menu despite not having seen it yet.
Some things were simply part of nature.
The dining room hummed with conversation.
Cutlery clinked against plates.
Chairs scraped softly across the floor.
Somewhere a kettle boiled.
I moved between tables carrying drinks and collecting empty plates, stopping every few minutes because somebody wanted something.
A napkin.
More tea.
A missing hearing aid.
A second opinion on whether the mashed potato tasted different from yesterday.
The answer was no.
Frank remained unconvinced.
By three o’clock the building had settled into its afternoon rhythm.
The rain continued outside.
Inside, people dozed in armchairs.
Arthur read by the window.
Elsie watched an old film.
Betty sat knitting something blue and suspiciously lumpy.
I was helping Joan untangle a necklace when Julia appeared beside us.
She held a folder under one arm.
Of course she did.
Julia always seemed to have a folder.
I wasn’t convinced she’d been born with one, but I couldn’t rule it out entirely.
“Harper.”
I looked up.
“What have I forgotten?”
Julia smiled.
“Nothing.”
“That sounds unlikely.”
Joan nodded in agreement.
Traitor.
“Just make sure you leave on time today.”
I frowned.
“I always leave on time.”
Julia gave me a look.
The sort of look that suggested we both knew that wasn’t true.
“Most of the time.”
“Harper.”
“Fine.”
Julia walked away.
Joan waited until she was out of earshot before leaning closer.
“She’s worried about you.”
I focused on the necklace.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Unfortunately, I did.
Class.
The word settled in my stomach like a stone.
Not because I didn’t want to learn.
I did.
That was the annoying part.
I just hated being the slowest person in the room.
Joan patted my arm.
“You’ll be fine.”
I smiled politely.
Everybody said that.
Arthur.
Julia.
Tiffany.
Now Joan.
As though confidence was something another person could hand you.
As though you could slip it into your pocket and carry it around all day.
By half past four, Willowmere was growing quieter.
Residents drifted back to their rooms.
The television murmured softly in the lounge.
The smell of dinner had started creeping from the kitchen.
I collected my bag from reception.
Julia was still working through paperwork.
Pages.
Forms.
Lists.
The sort of things that made my head ache just looking at them.
“See you tomorrow.”
She looked up.
“Class tonight?”
I groaned.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The groan.”
I smiled despite myself.
Julia smiled back.
“See you tomorrow, Harper.”
Outside, the rain had finally stopped.
Home was less than a minute away.
Just enough time to wish I wasn’t getting on a bus in an hour.
