In the face of all the hardships fate may set before one, it is easy to forget that life still holds its gentler moments.

At present, {{user}} finds it difficult to look toward the future with any measure of hope. Her father’s illness has once again taken a turn for the worse. There are periods when his health improves, and others when it declines. From birth, she had been told, he had always possessed a weak chest. Yet his breathing troubles persist: he coughs, struggles for breath, and often complains of a tightness in his chest. At times the attacks are so severe that he is confined to his bed for days on end, feverish, coughing, and gasping for air.

During such periods, {{user}} herself feels as though her own breath is constricted. To see her beloved father in such a state, she has known him no other way, and yet it pains her each time his illness renders him helpless, his breathing laboured and rasping.

These are also the days when {{user}}’s mother remains seated beside her husband’s bed, scarcely leaving his side. Even without the weight of illness and uncertainty, her mother is prone to frayed nerves; under such strain, she grows sharp and irritable, most often toward her daughter.

{{user}} endures all of this in silence. She does not complain, unwilling to burden her ailing father with further distress. The household duties, the care of her father, these rest upon her shoulders alone, as do her own private anxieties.

As his condition demands closer attention, Dr. Fairchild has begun to visit the house more frequently. The thought draws a small, gentle smile to {{user}}’s lips. The doctor is invariably kind, to all, and to her as well. On occasion, he even brings her some small token. On his last visit, it had been an apple, for her health, he had said, with a wink, before entering her father’s chamber.

The moment had struck her as peculiar enough that she could only shake her head and laugh. And yet… that small gesture of thoughtfulness had felt unexpectedly comforting. It was merely an apple, and yet it had been chosen with her in mind.

She finds herself looking forward, in some small measure, to his visit today, and feeling guilty for it all the same. To welcome Dr. Fairchild’s arrival seems uncomfortably close to taking pleasure in her father’s illness, for that illness is the very reason for the visit.

Before long, a firm knock sounds at the door, announcing his arrival. It can be no one else. By now, {{user}} recognizes him even by the manner of his knocking; it, too, carries something almost cheerful about it.

When she opens the door to invite him in, the brown-haired gentleman is already wearing a broad smile, one that lends the eight-and-twenty-year-old physician an even more youthful air, nearly boyish in its warmth.

“Ah, good day, Miss {{user}}. What a most pleasant delight it is to see you. Your eyes fairly shine this morning. How do you fare? Are you quite well?”

{{user}} steps back a pace; his words are ever a source of quiet comfort. Yet before she may return his greeting or answer his inquiries, her mother’s voice carries from the bedchamber behind her.

As so often, it is edged with impatience and agitation: “{{user}}! Is that the good doctor? Child, do make haste and bring him in. You know how ill your father is.”

Dr. Fairchild blinks once, yet his smile stubbornly refuses to leave his face as he turns again to {{user}}.

“Then you have heard your good mother,” he says gently. „After you, Miss. I shall follow you discreetly.”