And I kept seeing those wounds, not neat little holes like gunshot injuries in movies, but living, pulsing things, pushing out blood as if they were trying maliciously to rid him of it.

I sat motionless on that plastic chair because I didn’t know how to do anything else. Somewhere at the end of that corridor were the operating theatres. He was in there right now. He was alive or he was dead. He was being wheeled to some distant ward, surrounded by relieved, high-fiving colleagues, or someone was pulling that green cloth up over his –

My head sank into my hands and I listened to my breath, in and out. In and out. My body smelt unfamiliar: of blood and antiseptic and something sour left over from visceral fear. Periodically I would observe distantly that my hands were trembling, but I wasn’t sure if it was low blood sugar or exhaustion, and somehow the thought of trying to find food was way beyond me. Movement was beyond me.

My sister had texted me some time ago.

Where are you? We’re going for pizza. They are talking, but I need you here as United Nations.

I hadn’t answered. I couldn’t work out what to say.

He is talking about her hairy legs again. Please come. This could get ugly. She has a fearsome aim with a doughball.

I closed my eyes and I tried to remember what it felt like, a week ago, to lie on the grass beside Sam, the way his stretched-out legs were so much longer than mine, the reassuring scent of his warm shirt, the low rumble of his voice, the sun on my face. His face, turning towards mine to steal kisses, the way he looked secretly pleased after every one. The manner in which he walked, set slightly forward yet his weight so centred, the most solid man I had ever met – as if nothing could knock him down.

I felt the buzz and pulled my phone from my pocket, read my sister’s message. Where are you? Mum getting worried. I checked the time: 10:48 p.m. I couldn’t believe I was the same person who had woken that morning and dropped Lily at the station. I leaned back in the chair, thought for a moment and began to type. I’m at the City hospital. There’s been an accident. I’m fine. I’ll be back when I know

when I know

My finger hovered over the keys. I blinked and, after a moment, pressed send.

And I closed my eyes and prayed.

I came to with a start at the sound of the swing doors. My mother was walking briskly down the corridor, her good coat on, her arms already outstretched.

‘What the hell happened?’ Treena was close behind, dragging Thom, in his pyjamas with an anorak over the top. ‘Mum didn’t want to come without Dad and I wasn’t going to be left behind.’ Thom looked at me sleepily and waved a damp hand.

‘We had no clue what had happened to you!’ Mum sat down beside me, studying my face. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Sam has been shot.’

‘Shot? Your paramedic man?’

‘With a gun?’ said Treena.

It was then that my mother registered my jeans. She gazed at the red stains, disbelieving, and turned mutely to my father.

‘I was with him.’

She pressed her hands to her mouth. ‘Are you okay?’ And then, when she saw the answer was yes, at least physically, ‘Is … is he okay?’

The four of them stood before me, their faces immobilized by shock and concern. I was suddenly utterly relieved to have them there. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, and as my father stepped forward to take me in his arms, I finally began to cry.

We sat for several years, my family and I, on those plastic chairs. Or something close to that. Thom fell asleep on Treena’s lap, his face pale under the strip-lights, his battered cuddly cat pressed into the silky soft space between his neck and chin. Dad and Mum sat on each side of me and at any time one of them would hold my hand or stroke the side of my face and tell me it was going to be okay. I leaned against Dad and let the tears fall silently, and Mum wiped my face with her ever-present clean handkerchief. Periodically she would head off on a recce trip around the hospital for hot drinks.

‘She’d never have done that by herself a year ago,’ Dad said, the first time she disappeared. I couldn’t tell whether it was said admiringly or with regret.

We spoke little. There was nothing to say. The words repeated in my head like a mantra – Just let him be okay. Just let him be okay. Just let him be okay.

This is what catastrophe does: it strips away the fluff and the white noise, the should I really and the but what if. I wanted Sam. I knew it with a stinging clarity. I wanted to feel his arms around me, hear him talking, and sit in the cab of his ambulance. I wanted him to make me a salad with things he had grown in his garden and I wanted to feel his warm, bare chest rise and fall steadily under my arm while he slept. Why had I not been able to tell him that? Why had I wasted so much time worrying about what was not important?

Then, as Mum came through the doors at the far end, bearing a cardboard holder with four teas in it, the doors to the theatres opened and Donna emerged, her uniform still smeared with blood, trailing her hands through her hair. I stood. She slowed in front of us, her expression grave, her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. For a moment I thought I might pass out. Her eyes met mine. ‘Tough as old boots, that one.’

As I let out an involuntary sob, she touched my arm. ‘You did good, Lou,’ she said, and let out a long, shaky breath. ‘You did good tonight.’

He spent the night in intensive care, and was transferred to a high-dependency unit in the morning. Donna called his parents, and said she would stop by his place after she’d had some sleep to feed his animals. We went in to see him together shortly after midnight, but he was asleep, still ashen, a mask obscuring most of his face. I wanted to move closer to him but I was afraid to touch him, hooked up as he was to all those wires and tubes and monitors.

‘He really is going to be okay?’

She nodded. A nurse moved silently around the bed, checking levels, taking his pulse.

‘We were lucky it was an older handgun. A lot of kids are getting hold of semi-automatics now. That would have been it.’ She rubbed at her eyes. ‘It’ll probably be on the news, if nothing else happens. Mind you, another crew dealt with the murder of a mother and baby on Athena Road last night, so it’s possible it won’t be news at all.’

I tore my gaze from him, and turned to her. ‘Will you carry on?’

‘Carry on?’