Sims Life Musings

Joseph returned to his home three months after his death, always watching over his family but never seen or heard. He saw his youngest brother marry and raise a family of three strong boys, passing away peacefully in his sleep at the age of 71. Two of the boys were killed during World War 1, and the third eventually married and moved away. Strangers moved into the cottage, but never stayed for more than a couple of years. Joseph didn’t enjoy scaring them with the moving objects and cold spots in an otherwise warm room, but none of the people who moved in were “the right sort.” He didn’t object to families with young children, but the cottage only had two bedrooms so the families also left when they outgrew the place.

The cottage had been empty for two years, and Joseph became very lonely. He’d float from room to room, staring in dismay at the peeling wallpaper and fading paintwork, and gazed out of the upstairs windows at the jungle that used to be his neatly kept garden and vegetable patch. Many times he tried to leave, but some force that he had never understood kept pulling him back. Then, just when he’d become resigned to being alone, Elizabeth Gearing bought the cottage. With her parents’ help, Elizabeth transformed the cottage back into the cosy home that Joseph had once loved so dearly. The jungle outside was tamed, with hollyhocks and delphiniums replacing the brambles and stinging nettles, and roses and jasmine winding their way lazily around the front door.

Apart from her family and a few very close friends, Elizabeth never had any visitors. Monday to Friday she’d go to work at the local solicitors’ office, coming home at 6pm and having her dinner before taking a relaxing bath and curling up with a book or DVD. At weekends she’d do her weekly shopping then busy herself in the garden, losing all track of time until it became too dark to see what she was doing.

Joseph was amazed that no boyfriend was ever mentioned in Elizabeth’s conversations. He was also troubled by the sadness that sometimes crept into her features, and longed to hold her and listen to her troubles. Every night he’d wait until she was fast asleep, then sit in the chair in the corner of the bedroom and watch over her. Whenever Elizabeth had nightmares he would glide over to the bed and lay beside her, gently stroking her hair and humming a tune that his mother had once used to soothe him when he was a baby. He soon began to recognise the signs that Elizabeth was as lonely as he had been, and that was the point at which he realised that he was in love with her.