‘Have you seen my keys, Mrs J?’

‘Done already?’ she asks, surprised.

‘No.’ I spot them on the side, lurching to reach them and dropping them on the floor. ‘Fuck it!’

‘Is everything okay?’

‘I don’t know. Look, sorry, I’ll come back, I’ve just, I’ve gotta go!’ I hear Mrs J shout after me as I race out of her house and leap into my van, which starts on its fourth tickover. I need a new van. And I need the traffic not to be shit. And I need the east side of the city to be much closer to the hospital.

Shit.

It takes me twenty minutes to do the thirty-minute journey and I hope and pray that the recently defaced speed camera isn’t working. The one-way system and multitude of bus lanes do not serve the person in a hurry very well. I’m out of breath as I make the run from giant car park to even bigger hospital. Every corridor looks identical. Each sign seemingly points in every direction but the one I want.

I turn back on myself and head to reception, jigging about at the desk, waiting for the queue of people to go down so I can ask which direction I should take.

‘Woods,’ I repeat, now at the front of the queue but drawing a blank from the officious woman on the desk.

‘When was she brought in?’ asks the lady, clicking at her computer and frowning.

‘I don’t know, I had a call half an hour ago.’ I try to remember the nurse’s name. ‘Kat!’ I say, banging my hand on the desk. ‘Nurse Kat Davies.’ The receptionist mutters something inaudible to herself. I tap the desk, impatiently.

‘Ward four,’ she says, unimpressed.

I dodge an elderly couple and a heavily pregnant woman as I jog over to the lifts, pushing all the buttons, watching the lights and floor numbers, waiting for one to arrive. When I get up to the ward, I sneak straight in behind a couple of cleaners and a woman in one of those open-backed nighties. I practically leapfrog the desk, startling a nurse making notes in bright green pen on a whiteboard. ‘Nurse Davies?’ I ask. ‘Nurse Kat Davies?’ Fuck. All this heavy breathing. ‘She left a message for me, I think she has my mum here?’ I’m scanning the rooms, hoping for a glimpse of something to tell me she’s alright.

The nurse turns to face me; her badge tells me I’ve got the right person. ‘You! You called me! I’m Rhys.’ I take a deep breath, wondering when I got so unfit. ‘Rhys Woods.’

‘Oh, Mr Woods,’ she says, surprised. She steps out from behind the desk, ushering me down the corridor. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to… I thought I’d…’ She looks at her fob watch, pointing me in the direction of a Family Room, and my mouth runs dry. I can’t help but pause before going in, stopped on the threshold. I’ve been here before. They all look the same. Smell the same, sort of clean but loaded with a heady mix of bad news and despair. The nurse, Kat, motions me in. I rub my chin, stubble scratching at the palm of my hand, taking one step, then another, finding myself in the middle of a room exactly like the one in which me and Mum were told David couldn’t be saved. We’d found him too late. It was not in his best interests for them to keep him alive.