The cup was in his hands. Hers stayed close.
The cup trembled when he lifted it.
The nurse placed her palm beneath its base without taking it away from him. Warm tea touched his lip, and a little spilled onto the blanket. He looked down at the stain with an irritation she was pleased to see. That morning, he had enough strength to be annoyed by something small.
Beyond the window, a delivery cart rattled over the paving. The ward smelled of soap, clean linen, and breakfast carried along the corridor. On the bedside table lay a letter, creased where his fingers had opened it repeatedly. He had asked for it twice before breakfast, although he could almost recite it now.
When he tried to sit farther forward, pain stopped him. The nurse shifted the pillow and waited while he found a position he could bear. The tea was cooling. For once, neither of them hurried it.
He glanced at the letter. There were questions he had not answered: when he might travel, what work he could manage, what he would say when someone asked about the men who had left with him. He smoothed one corner of the paper, then rested his hand beside it.
A trolley stopped outside the door. The nurse checked the label on a small vial against the entry on his chart before placing it on the tray. Far from the laboratory where the medicine had been prepared, another pair of hands was making sure it reached the right bed.
He lowered the cup. She moved to take it, then paused as he adjusted his grip and set it on the saucer himself. Porcelain made a small, uneven click.
He looked at her hand, still hovering nearby, and reached for it.
She stayed until his fingers relaxed.
Literary note: The patient and nurse in this epilogue are fictional. Their recovery scene is not the documented history of a particular person.
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