A Lesson Learnt

**Content Warning: Elder Death**

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There was a catch in the steady breathing coming from the corner of the darkened room where the old lady lay sleeping. Was she awake? 

Alex quickly closed the wardrobe where the Chanel clutch bag lay hidden among old vests and nylon petticoats. She would come back another time. 

For a care assistant, the night shift at Hanover Dene Residential Home was less work than the day shift. The money was better, and she liked it because it gave her ample time to use the search engines on the company internet. As she had no children to look after, it suited her well. 

Also, the shadows of the night enabled her to indulge in her little hobby of pilfering, or as she would call it, ‘borrowing’. 

At twenty-four and reasonably independent from her straight-laced adoptive parents, Alex was waiting for her prince to come so she could finally understand what it was like to feel loved. Tom and Nora were good people. They had been supportive parents, raised her in a lovely home, and given her enough teaching to make her a well-rounded person, for which she was grateful. 

Then, when she had reached eleven, the relationship slipped a gear and began to feel more distant. They had sat her down one day and told her she was adopted. She learnt of her birth mother’s passing when she was born and the emotional story of how they had chosen her to join their family and loved her as their own. 

Maybe things changed because she now knew the facts, but at that time she raised a subtly invisible barrier between her and them. Thereafter, she spent a lot of her youth fantasising about what life would have been with her real mother. She longed to feel a stronger connection with someone who would make her feel less alone. Someone to which she felt she belonged.

As she started to develop her adult life, the loss of her mother lay simmering in the waters beneath everything she felt and did. The torment of having no one special, who she could completely trust, ate into her very being. She needed to find her father. 

At work, Alex happily went about her duties. Louise, the Manager, lived on site and was available for any emergencies, but she felt confident leaving her twelve clients in the young woman’s care for the quieter night hours. No one at the moment had the need for a hoist, so one carer was enough for now. 

Mr. Broom in room five needed to use the toilet several times in the night, so the two of them would have a little natter when she emptied his commode and made him comfortable back in bed. A lovely and kind man, he was always embarrassed at her having to do such a personal thing for him. Alex wondered if her dad was a sweet soul like him.

Once she had ‘borrowed’ a pair of gold cuff-links from the clipped valuables case in his bottom drawer. He would never wear them again so she didn’t feel guilty, and anyway, she was going to return them, wasn’t she? It felt nice just having something of his at home. 

The tissue-paper wrapped clutch bag had been nestled at the back of Clara’s wardrobe ever since she had moved in. She was a frail little lady who fell easily if she didn’t have a sturdy support, and she could be forgetful at times. Everyone was surprised that she’d never had an official diagnosis of dementia, although if she had, there’d be nothing anyone could do to cure it. 

Alex had spotted the bag one evening when she was returning some clothes from the laundry. The family had left it with Clara as it had once been a treasured possession, but she assumed the lady had forgotten about it long ago. She would certainly never use it again. Alex pushed it further back and covered it well so no one else would see it. 

“You’re a good girl, doing all my jobs”, Clara smiled. “Now come over here and give this dippy old thing a hug”. 

As far as she knew, there were never any children in the old lady’s life. Alex found this sad, so she gave her a warm hug. Much later, the clutch bag was silently removed from the wardrobe and rolled down to the staff cloakroom via the towel trolley. 

Alex decided to actively start searching for her dad. All she had was his name. According to her Birth certificate, his name was George Mark Wright and at the time she was born he had been a shop-fitter. 

Punching George’s name into the Facebook search engine for the umpteenth time no results had been detected of anyone by that name from Swindon, where her birth had been registered. Of course he could have moved anywhere, but there were so many in England of around his age that it had made her feel as if the task was useless.

Her hope now dwindling, she sent out a more personalised search and asked for it to be shared by everyone who read it. Someone recommended she get a DNA test done which she’d then ordered and was told the results would go on a national database. 

A lot of these details would find their way into the fuzzy ears of the kind old folk in the home. For most, it was light chatter while Alex would tell them of her hopes of finding him and the pondering of what he’d be like. 

“I won’t put any pressure on him. He might not have told his family about me, anyway.” She told Clara about her search one day while she was brushing her hair, parted to the left the way she liked it and hooked behind her ears. Sweetly nodding her head, the old lady seemed to understand exactly the way Alex was feeling. 

Being careful not to raise her hopes too high, she would punch away on the keyboard in the early hours when there was time between sorting the laundry room and her hourly checks on the sleeping clients. She loved the peacefulness of the softly lit corridors and the gentleness of the short conversations in the hushed voices of night. 

The odd bar of chocolates or home-made cookies — gifts from a visiting daughter or son — would find their way into her pockets, already littered with crumbs from previous occupants. Josephine in room eleven had once had a dainty emerald tear-drop pendant on a gold chain in her tattered old jewelry case; nobody had ever noticed it had been ‘borrowed’. 

Later that spring, during one of her late-night regular rounds, Alex put her head round Clara’s door and was met with the ominous silence of emptiness. With her heart thumping, she dreaded switching on the light. But knew she had to do. 

Clara looked as vulnerable as a chick that had fallen from its nest. The old lady was curled up on her side with the duvet on the floor. At first, she looked as if she were peacefully asleep, but her eyes were just slightly open in a sightless way. It was obvious that she had gone. 

Sitting down on the bed, Alex stroked the cool, loose skinned arm of the little frail lady.

“Goodnight Clara,” she said in a whisper. “It’s been nice knowing you. Sleep well. And mind the bedbugs don’t bite”. 

Eventually, back in work mode, she gently rolled Clara’s body onto her back and straightened her legs out before she began to stiffen, pulled her nightdress over her knees, replaced the fallen duvet, and rang Louise.

With no family present, the funeral was especially sad. Clara had evidently been on her own in this world. 

“Perhaps that’s one of the reasons we got on so well”, Alex thought, ruefully. As many of the girls that could be spared, Robert the gardener and Tim from the kitchen attended the service. 

The thought of Clara meeting her maker without anyone saying goodbye was unthinkable; she had been a kind soul and everyone had liked her. Everyone said she’d always appreciate their company, even when she didn’t know who they were. 

One night, on her Facebook page, a message was flashing: I think I knew your father.

“Oh my God,” Alex trembled as she kept on reading and recognised her mothers name along with a village near Swindon. “I can’t believe I’ve finally found him!” The writer enclosed his phone number and invited Alex to ring him at her convenience. 

Seemingly never-ending, the rest of the shift passed without any issues apart from Alex’s racing heart. Clearing her head in the morning air, she forced herself to gather her thoughts and make sense of her questions. A good sleep was needed before she’d be brave enough to ring. 

She regretted ringing as soon as the phone was answered. 

“I’m so sorry to tell you that he died years ago,” the caller said. “He was only in his forties. My Dad knew him quite well, they were drinking buddies. I believe it was a heart attack that got him.” 

The devastation hit Alex like a steam train. Through the waterfall of tears in her head she just managed to hear them recommend using an ancestry site. She had, but she no longer wanted or needed any more information. Enough was enough. 

Feeling more alone than she ever thought possible, for the moment she just had to concentrate on keeping breathing.

Around five months later, each member of staff at Hannover Dene received a very formal letter from Adams Solicitors informing them that a substantial monetary amount would be coming their way, bequeathed by Clara Rose Blunt. Stunned, yet excited, the word was passed around. 

“Wow, I didn’t expect that! What a lovely surprise! Did you get one too?” Texts were flying backwards and forwards among the carers, the housekeepers, cooks and groundsmen. Workers on and off shift — the few that were off work on their holiday or who were at home unwell — were all feeling guilty about it but already planning what to do with the money. 

“Is it really for everyone?” was the first question. 

Actually, not everyone. It soon became clear that it was everyone but Alex. The one carer who Clara had been so especially friendly with. Why? Everyone was baffled. 

That evening, when she arrived at work, Louise pulled her into her office for a word. 

“Sit down, Alex”, she said kindly. 

“You must be wondering why, or if there was a mistake. I know, I was shocked too. But I was at the reading of her will, and I know why, or at least what Clara was thinking.

“But I want you to know, Alex, that I know you, and we all know she could imagine things, so I’m not even going to consider this as true. In her will, she accused you of stealing from her room. She doesn’t give specifics and doesn’t want you to be reprimanded, but she says that she wants you to learn that actions have consequences, before you come to harm.” 

Louise looked up at the tearful face in front of her. 

“I believe she did genuinely care for you, I really do. She was actually trying to help you, Alex.”

Earlier that day, a cold cup of coffee and untouched cheese sandwich by her side, Alex had sat staring at the screen of her laptop. She was on an ancestry site, finally strong enough to pay her subscription and join other curious relative searchers. 

George Mark Wright, her father, had had an older sister, now deceased. Her name was Clara Blunt.

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Want to read more? Try some of these other pieces from our writers at The MockingOwl Roost! 

• A New Mother; Matritva – Fiction
• A Moment of Discovery – Flash Fiction
• Unfinished Fragment (An exploration of grief) – Poetry