And then the wailing started. Everyone responds to crisis situations in different ways. There are the capable types who calmly assess the situation, step in and help. The people who throw their hands up and back away, and the people who fall apart. The mother was falling apart. She didn’t know how to help her daughter, her daughter who couldn’t breathe and was turning redder by the second. And maybe without even realising it, she’d begun to scream. That scream was the most sickening noise Mimi had ever heard in her entire — albeit short — life. She couldn’t say what it was about it. Was it the anguish she could hear within it? The fear? The rawness? It was strangled and it was animalistic and it was frightening and she wanted it to stop.

In the meantime, other diners had converged on the table. Mimi couldn’t see the teenager’s face anymore. Someone had hoisted her out of her chair and now they were attempting to do the Heimlich manoeuvre. But from the frustrated shouts, it didn’t seem to be working. That’s when Mimi’s mum took her by the hand and led her out of the restaurant. Maybe she saw the look on her face, or maybe she was afraid they weren’t going to be able to save the girl, that she might die right here in the middle of the restaurant and she didn’t want Mimi to witness that. They wandered up and down the footpath outside and her mother chatted to her about different things. She couldn’t remember now what they spoke about, but she could recall that sense of knowing. She’s trying to distract me.

Soon there was the wail of a siren.

Mimi never found out whether that girl was okay, but she did think about it a lot. She replayed the scene in her mind as she fell asleep at night. She heard the sound of the mother’s cries and her skin would crawl and her stomach would churn, and sometimes tears would sting her eyes and she didn’t really understand why.

Thirty years had gone by since that night at the restaurant and tonight, Mimi had found herself thinking of that mother again. It was Christmas Eve, so she shouldn’t be thinking about her. She should be thinking about happy things. Warm, feel-good things. Must remember to hang the stockings tonight when we arrive at the holiday house. Was the turkey I bought too big for that oven up there? I should have double-checked with Jill. Did Pete’s brother, Darren, remember to pick up the prawns this morning? And was he smart enough to pack them in an esky with ice for the drive up?