The Hospital for Broken Promises

How it begins

The teacup needed a visitor.

Nora had delivered patients, flowers, laundry and one unexpectedly mobile collection of aquarium fish. She had never delivered a visitor to crockery.

Elsie waited beside the bed with a clipboard.

"Is the ward number wrong?"

"No."

"There isn't a ward nineteen."

"There is when it needs something."

The room held six beds.

On the first lay a broken umbrella.

On the second, a single green glove.

The teacup occupied the bed by the window, tucked into a folded towel with its handle facing the door.

A crack ran through a painted blue bird.

Nora put down the trolley.

"Who admitted it?"

"You did."

She laughed, then stopped because Elsie did not.

Nora had spent twenty-two years in that hospital. She knew which lift needed a shoulder against the door and which consultant would say thank you if nobody important was watching.

She had never seen this corridor.

On the clipboard, beneath the cup's description, was her sister's name.

Nora had promised to visit on a Tuesday.

There had been many Tuesdays since.

She touched the handle.

The crack widened.

Elsie made a note.

"What do I do?"

"That depends what you promised."

Nora looked at the cup.

Her sister had bought a set of six at a market when they first lived together. The blue birds had faced different directions. Nora had always taken the one looking left.

She had not remembered that in years.

"I can repair the handle," Elsie said.

"The handle isn't broken."

"Not yet."

In the next bed, the umbrella shook itself. A little rain fell onto the blanket.

Nora took out her phone.

Her sister's number remained saved under Home, though neither of them had lived there for a long time.

She looked at Elsie.

"What if she doesn't want a visitor?"

The older woman set down the clipboard.

"Then," she said, "perhaps you begin by asking."