The Chair by the Window
UNITED STATES10SHORT STORY
Sofia
1/31/20251 min read
Every afternoon, Sofia visited her grandfather at the care home.
He always sat in the chair beside the window.
Some days he recognised her immediately. Other days he called her by her mother’s name.
Sofia hated those days.
She corrected him sharply at first.
“I’m Sofia, Grandpa.”
He would apologise and become quiet.
One afternoon, he pointed toward the courtyard.
“The orange tree is taller now,” he said.
There was no orange tree. Only a bare fountain stood outside.
Sofia almost corrected him.
Then she asked, “How tall was it before?”
Grandfather smiled.
He described an orange tree outside the house where he grew up. He and his brother had climbed it, stolen fruit, and blamed birds.
Sofia listened.
During later visits, she stopped testing him with questions like, “Do you remember my birthday?” Instead, she brought objects.
A seashell led to a story about his first trip to the coast. A wooden spoon reminded him of his mother’s kitchen.
Not every story was accurate. Details changed. His brother became older in one version and younger in another.
Sofia wrote them down anyway.
One day, Grandfather did not speak much.
Sofia sat beside him and read from the notebook.
She told him about the orange tree, the stolen fruit, and the birds that received the blame.
He laughed softly.
“I remember that.”
Sofia did not know whether he remembered the event or simply enjoyed the story.
It no longer seemed important.
After Grandfather died, Sofia’s family planted an orange tree in their garden.
It was small and produced no fruit the first year.
Sofia placed the chair from his room beside the window facing it.
Whenever relatives visited, she read them stories from the notebook.
Some corrected details.
Sofia let them.
Memory, she had learned, was not always a perfect record.
Sometimes it was a place people met, even when they arrived by different paths.