The intake nurse asked all about the pregnancy and the blood and the pain. They handed me a specimen jar and some forms to fill out and when I got back from the toilet they sat me up, sample in hand, on one of the beds, the thin waterproof foam crackling beneath me as the nurse pulled the curtain around and went to fetch the doctor.

I waited. The pain was still there, but it felt distant, everything felt distant. In that moment of watching Hessel and my mother, of being powerless, frozen, something had happened: something in me had come apart, I had come apart, from myself. Pain, blood, pregnancy – it was all meaningless. I couldn’t imagine feeling connected to my body ever again.

A familiar voice sounded on the other side of the curtain: speaking in conference with the nurse it caught my ear, and in a moment the curtain was quickly pulled aside and the owner of the voice stepped into the cubicle. It was Geraldine.

‘Anna,’ she said, quietly. ‘Nice to see you again.’ And she pulled the curtain shut behind her and drew up a chair. ‘I’ve got your admission sheet here, about the pregnancy, but I’ve also got that your mum was just brought in by ambulance?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I’d managed to speak. It seemed a minor miracle. ‘Is she okay?’ I asked.

‘Seems to be,’ said Geraldine, flicking the bit of paper back and forth to look at both sides. ‘Says they’re treating her for shock, and they’ll probably take a scan for clots because, is that right, that she was strangled?’

‘Yes, by Hessel.’

And suddenly there it was in my head again: Hessel’s claws around my mother’s throat. I squeezed my eyes against the visitation. My breath came suddenly short and sharp.

‘Anna?’ Geraldine said, laying fingertips lightly on the back of my hand.

‘I saw it,’ I heard myself telling Geraldine from somewhere across the room, somewhere on another planet. Was Mum okay? I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen her. The only thing I could remember seeing was her being strangled by Hessel. ‘Is she okay?’ I said again.

‘Yes, Anna. She’s okay. She’s going to be okay.’ She took my hand in hers. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of here. They’ve taken Hessel to a different hospital, to an intensive care unit in the city. And your mum is in good hands here. She’s going to be okay.’

‘And Bette?’

‘Bette went with Hessel.’ I opened my eyes then, and Geraldine looked sadly at me. ‘Sometimes there’s only so much you can do for someone,’ she said.

I nodded. Geraldine left the room for a moment and then she was back sitting beside me. ‘Anna, I’ve just put a psych request in for you. Seeing something like that –’

‘That’s what you were trying to ask, wasn’t it, or to tell me, when I came in with Bette – that Hessel was dangerous? He totally attacked Mum, like . . .’ I almost didn’t have the words to describe it.