"Tim, I'm so sorry!" Patrick rushed back to the MG after his final house call. "I didn't mean for that to take so long."
He opened the door to find Tim spread out in the backseat, eating a biscuit and carefully coloring in the blue of a nun's habit.
"What's that you're working on?" Patrick cocked his head to read the picture's title and some of the text below.
"It's for Cubs," said Tim, through the remainder of the biscuit. Over his shoulder, Patrick read: My Best Friend: Sister Bernadette works at Nonnatus House. She is a midwife and a nun. She knows how to make people better when they're ill, and how to run very fast in a three-legged race.
Patrick struggled to control his emotions, grateful his son was concentrating too hard on the drawing to see the half-smile, half-giddy grimace wrestle itself onto and off of his face. He cleared his throat. "I thought Jack was your best friend."
Tim shrugged, wiping crumbs off the seat. "Sometimes Jack's too busy to play, and he never wants to do science experiments with me anymore. But Sister Bernadette always makes time. Yesterday she taught me that the tongue is the strongest muscle, isn't that neat?"
"I could have told you that," Patrick nearly pouted, trying not to get too distracted by the thought of Sister Bernadette's tongue.
"Yeah, but you don't. Can we go now? I'm starving."
Several months later, Shelagh was distraught as Timothy stomped out the door.
"I'm just going to play out! I don't have to be bored inside all the time, just because I've had polio," he grunted.
"Go on, Tim, just be back by supper time." Patrick held the door open and drew Shelagh in for a hug. "He'll be fine, Shelagh, they're just outside."
"I'm just so worried about him, and I think he's growing to hate me," Shelagh said, her face buried in Patrick's shirt. At that, he sat her down at the kitchen table and ran off to the other room.
She found him shuffling through a stack of papers in Tim's room. "Patrick, what on earth–"
"Here," he exclaimed, shoving a paper under her nose. My Best Friend. She teared up at the drawing, a little boy in his green uniform tied at the leg to a nun with enormous glasses.
"I'm his best friend?"
"What are you doing in my room?" Tim entered the room, retrieving his model airplane. "And who's best friend are you?"
"Yours," Patrick answered.
"No, Colin's my best friend," Tim answered matter-of-factly; Shelagh felt it like a punch to the gut. He turned to her, eyes still guarded with the defiance of earlier. "You're my mum. Can I go back out now?"
"Yes, Tim," Patrick nodded.
"I love you," Shelagh called after him, not quite managing to hold back the tears. Tim turned begrudgingly, and on seeing her made his way across the room for a hug.
"I love you too, mum."