Quinn looked across the landing at his mother’s bathroom. He didn’t like going in there. The white tiled floor had never been white again; that much blood seeping into the floor had turned the grouting grey. Daddy got them to take out the whole floor. Then he redid the guest bathroom too, so that the new tiles would match.

Quinn didn’t remember all the details – he’d been six. His memories of that day felt like a trailer for a film, flashed images and sounds branded onto his young brain. He remembered being woken by the screaming downstairs. First he thought it must be the television, but then it went on and on. He saw the blood before he saw his mother. She was on the floor in a pool of it, sitting against the toilet, clutching her balloon stomach. The screaming had stopped; she was so white, she could hardly speak. She told him to find her phone. Quinn didn’t remember getting the phone or calling for an ambulance.

He remembered thinking the bath must have overflowed, but he didn’t know why the water was red. He remembered thinking he’d never seen his mother look so scared. He remembered waiting outside a hospital room the next day with his father. Daddy kept clicking the strap on his Rolex watch open and shut. He smelt of smoke and dirty washing. Then Daddy went in to see her and Quinn was told to wait outside. Mummy cried and screamed at him for not being at home.

He remembered his father moving Quinn’s old cot back up to the attic, along with all the other boxes that had been brought down and stacked up in the spare room. He remembered walking into that room and seeing his father on the floor with his hands over his eyes, his body moving up and down making the strangest sound. When his father saw him in the doorway, he took off his shoe and threw it at the door and it slammed in Quinn’s face.

Quinn thought about that night in the bathroom a lot. If it hadn’t happened, would his mother be more like a normal mother? Would it have happened if his father had been home? Would it have happened if he had gone downstairs sooner? Mrs Jacobs the counsellor at school said he couldn’t think like that. Mrs Jacobs said the bathroom incident wasn’t the only reason his mother was like she was. She said some people were just anxious, but things could happen that made them more anxious, that made it harder for them to leave the house. Then Mrs Jacobs had mentioned him going to live with his father in New York and Quinn had stopped telling her these things about his mother.