Jane was wearing a small navy vest top that Michaela had given her, all forgiven now we were reassured Margaret Rose was just sleeping and not dying.

‘Thank you so much, my dear,’ Jane said to Michaela, as she pulled at the string of the top. ‘Quite the drapery you two lovely young ladies have going.’ Michaela looked at me, and we smiled. Everything started to go infundibula and yellow and fuzzy and I could hear a whoosh in my head as I shook all over.

Jane came and pulled the curtain around me and I succumbed to her, lay back as she pulled my oxygen mask onto my face. I imagined her twisting the little copper nozzle on the oxygen tank and then Iron & Wine’s banjos came through the headphones on the bed. Jane leaned her willowy frame over me and kissed me with her stained lips, sitting on my bed, like a parent tucking in their child. She rubbed my hair out of my face, kissing me again, gently, on my forehead.

‘Now, that better?’ Jane said, lifting the mask of my face.

I nodded, and she grabbed my hand.

‘You OK? Why are you crying so much?’

I shook my head. Oxygen escaped.

‘I know, I know, you see, your breath is going against you.’

I smiled.

‘You’re having a little attack. I get them all the time.’

Air passed a little further down now, my belly rose gently, small ball.

When Alex returned, I’d play What If. Show him I believed he was up to it. The job. The kids. What If, yes, I’d play that game with him. What If the house was on fire but Jacob was showing signs of meningitis and then Nathan fell and banged his head? What If the boys wanted to go to a disco and bring a naggin and sleep over in the house of a parent we didn’t know? What If Joshua got Grand Theft Auto and you found Jacob playing it? I stopped the game. I couldn’t answer the questions myself.

‘Thanks, Jane.’

Head. Heart. Hands. Husband. Hold all. Home.

She sat at the end of the bed now and put her feet in under my chin, I threw the fuchsia hoody over them.

‘You’ve lipstick all over your face, Jane.’ I smiled.

‘I have?’

‘Yeah, look.’ I passed her a little silver mirror.

‘Ash, ash, hash, ta-da, ta-da, ya still have it, Jane,’ she said, and smiled in at the mirror. ‘What is this awful shade of red? Is this blood? Oh, my God, am I bleeding? Oh, my goodness, I’m dying? Aren’t I?’

‘No, no, no … it’s only lipstick, Jane, just some red lipstick. Look … it’s OK.’ I showed her the tube and began twisting it up and down in an effort to rejig her memory, remind her.

‘Oh, now, now, rub it off me, girl, it’s a dangerous red, pillar-box red, red is a dangerous lipstick, polish up my skin, make it like your skin, polish it young for me like a good girl, you know Ann told me how very beautiful I am, do you know I have nine children and not one of them even met her?’