Goodbye, Wendy: A short story about kindness to brighten your day

For World Kindness Day, Heather Martin shares a story about an elderly woman, a kind friend and a hard goodbye

‘Between shifts, Joe and Wendy liked to shoot the breeze outside over one of her bootleg cigarettes and, for her, a cup of milky tea with one sugar’ (Getty/iStock)

“Goodbye, Wendy” is one of more than 50 short stories by authors across the literary spectrum included in Everyday Kindness, a charity anthology edited by bestselling mystery and thriller writer L J Ross. Each story captures a moment of goodwill inspired by others, and was conceived in direct response to the Covid-19 crisis as a means of fostering positive mental health and rekindling hope in dark times.

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He was the main reason they went there. Not the only one, of course. It had a great vantage point on the crossroads, with a natural sun trap on the triangular concrete oasis outside, and a view down the facing street to patches of green and the church steeple beyond. The sandwiches were pretty good too. Choose-your-own fillings, wonky bread, Turkish or sourdough, never the same twice, all jammed together in the toaster but most likely falling apart on your plate, so you had to lick your fingers to get all the goodness from them. Red pesto or green, spicy or mild, all homemade and all just how you wanted it.