One Day in Winter

Prologue

It was nothing like a scene from Grey’s Anatomy.

You know, when alarms sound, and pagers go off, and the model-esque doctor who was having sex with her unfeasibly gorgeous boss in the on-call room leaps to her feet, all tousled hair and bee-stung lips, pulls on her scrubs, and charges to the rescue, not even stopping to adjust her bra before she saves the day.

Nothing like that at all.

If this were a TV drama, the writers would be told to get back to the drawing board, add a bit of excitement, a touch of jeopardy, and perhaps some lascivious underwear, before bringing the scene back to the director.

Because this was… understated.

Just a person. Lying on a bed. In a hospital room. Breathing.

There was no time to say goodbye. No time for regrets or recriminations. No time to wait until the loved ones had gathered by the bed to bid them farewell.

They didn’t know that somewhere out there a heart had just been crushed by the weight of broken promises.

Or that someone else sighed with relief as they walked away from the past. Or that someone’s plans for a new life had turned to dust. Or that a very unexpected love was pulling two people together.

They didn’t know that the person they loved most in the world wouldn’t make it in time. Maybe wouldn’t make it at all.

They didn’t know that a love had died, that when it came right down to it, the only love that mattered was the one that endured, that stuck, that was meant to be.

Just a person. Lying on a bed. In a hospital room. Breathing.

Just a heart, beating.

And then it stopped.