Instead they communicated through small gestures. He held up the toy. He nodded slowly. He pressed his palm against the window.
Emily responded from her bed with a small wave, a smile, sometimes a thumbs up.
It was quiet.
Peaceful in a strange way.
Until one morning the nurse looked at Emily’s file more closely.
And something didn’t add up.
There was no visitor registered under the biker’s name.
Not once.
No father.
No uncle.
No guardian.
Just a note written months earlier.
Father – deceased.
The nurse looked up slowly from the chart.
Outside the window, the biker stood where he always did, turning the silver motorcycle pendant slowly between his fingers.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
A question settled into the nurse’s mind.
If the man outside wasn’t Emily’s father, then why did the little girl look at him like she already knew he would come back?
Later that afternoon, after finishing her rounds, the nurse pulled a chair beside Emily’s bed.
The stuffed rabbit sat beside the girl’s pillow.
“You like the toys he brings you?” the nurse asked.
Emily nodded.
“He fixes them first,” she said quietly.
“Fixes them?”
Emily held up the rabbit. “The eye fell off. He stitched it.”
The nurse felt her curiosity grow.