by fiona killackey

Forty-five minutes. That’s all it took for Mum to go from isto was. She was seemingly okay, packing books to read for what she assumed would be a long wait at the hospital (for a check-up, as she hadn’t been feeling well for twenty-four hours), and within the length of a podcast episode, she was gone. Just like that. No warnings. No goodbyes.

I remember arriving at Emergency not knowing what had happened. I’d been at that same hospital entrance exactly thirteen months earlier for what turned out to be the start of our miscarriage. As I parked, I told myself to stop imagining the worst. Mum would be