By mid-afternoon I’d left her to it, planning on catching up on some of my own to-do list, and I was upstairs changing my beautiful new duvet cover when I heard the knock. Even from that distance I could sense the urgency .
Dropping the bedding, I half ran, half tumbled down the stairs and raced into the kitchen, flinging open the door to find Joan, her tear-streaked face the colour of cold ashes.
‘Mum!’
Forgoing the seconds required to put on a pair of shoes, I sprinted across to New Cottage, praying that this was an emergency where speed could make a difference, rather than a tragedy where it was too late for swift action.
I found her on the bedroom floor.
For a heart-splintering moment, I thought she was dead.
Shoving aside the swirling horror, I knelt down in the mess of crumpled clothes and tried to remember the emergency first aid training I’d undertaken when Mum first fell ill.
Leaning in close to find out if she was breathing, I saw Joan appear at the bedroom door.
‘Have you called an ambulance?’
She gave her head a frantic shake.
‘Okay, that’s fine. But can you call 999 and ask for an ambulance while I check if Mum’s all right?’
Mum was clearly not all right. She was breathing, just, but when I rolled her into the recovery position it felt like manoeuvring a bag of sand. I couldn’t see anything to suggest she was injured, but while Joan squeaked her answers to the emergency operator, I didn’t feel a twitch or hear the tiniest murmur to give me hope that this was anything but deadly serious.
‘Come on, Leanne, stay with us,’ I muttered, leaning close as I wiped the hair off her clammy forehead and straightened her T-shirt, my fear ramping up as I felt the bones jutting through her scant flesh.
From what I had managed to take in of Joan’s conversation, Leanne had come home early from work because she’d not been well. I knew how bad she must have felt to abandon a shift.
The woman on the end of the phone asked Joan if her mum was on any medication.
‘Just headache tablets.’ Joan looked at me for reassurance. I scanned the room but found no evidence of anything but a life drowning in wretched chaos.
I’d been twenty-one, the first time I spent the night huddled in a plastic hospital chair, waiting to hear what had happened to my mother. Aunty Irene had sat beside me, holding my hand and passing me tissues and Steph had messaged me faithfully throughout those endless, anxious hours.
I now sat here with another girl waiting to be told whether her life was about to drastically change forever. Ramrod straight, as the clock on the wall crept its way towards morning, Joan sat in silence, her face a stoic mask.
She looked so much like her mother I could have cried – only resisting because I was supposed to be here supporting Joan, rather than falling apart.
The hospital staff had taken me to one side and asked if there was any other family we should call. Did I know what Leanne’s wishes might be regarding her daughter, should she need someone to take care of her? Was I aware of any ill health, any past issues that might be useful for the doctors to know about?
Every question was like another spike jamming between my ribs.
I was so tired, so worried that it was impossible to think, to consider what the right answer should be.
That’s not quite true – I knew one answer, without a shadow of a doubt. ‘I’m Joan’s childminder. I take care of her while Leanne’s at work. Most days after school and on Saturdays. There’s no one else, as far as I know, but I’ll look after her. I have a spare room, she knows me, she knows my house, her dog lives at my house. We even share a garden! You can’t send her to strangers; I know Leanne wouldn’t want that.’
My guts ripped inside out at the thought of Joan being anywhere but with me. When they started talking about social services, I called Steph, who listened to my garbled ramblings and told me to leave it with her, to go outside, take five deep breaths and then go back and sit with Joan.
The question about past issues or illnesses – where did I start?
‘I think she had an abusive partner, but she left him two, three years ago. She’s been unwell for a few weeks, with headaches and feeling sick and exhausted, but I don’t know any more than that.’
A while later, a doctor again took me to one side. ‘Are you aware of any history of drug use?’
My stomach took a nosedive. ‘She mentioned drugs, once, in reference to her ex-partner. She said she hasn’t drunk any alcohol since she left him.’
The clock ticked on. The shadows crept across the grey floor tiles. We sat in a semi-private waiting area, cocooned in the muffled background hum of a hospital: feet tapping along the corridors, the rustle of a nurse’s uniform, faint beeps and buzzes and hushed conversations. A sudden groan of agony.