Winifred Barnaby woke in the middle of the night, certain she was in her own bed at home. Yet as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she remembered—she was at the Willowbrook Care Home. They called it a retirement village these days, though that didn’t make it any less grim.
She shut her eyes, willing sleep to return, but it wouldn’t come. She napped too much in the day—what else was there to do? Nights were restless, mornings worse. She’d wake shattered, head pounding.
The cold linoleum numbed her toes. If she got under the blankets quickly enough, she’d warm up and drift off. It used to work.
Winifred threw back the covers and shuffled to the window. The lamp above the entrance cast a sickly glow over the snow-dusted drive, the skeletal trees. In the distance, city lights flickered. Her old house was out there somewhere—where she’d raised her son, where she’d lost him. A chill seeped through the glass. She shivered. No use dwelling. No one waited for her there.
She and her husband had been happy. Proud of their boy, too—bright, well-mannered. University, marriage, a granddaughter. Then he’d gone into business with a friend. That was the beginning. Someone took offense, the venture collapsed, debts piled up. He started drinking. When his wife left, it got worse. Winifred and her husband tried everything—rehab, therapy. Then came the crash. Drunk behind the wheel.
