Charlotte: After the shock

GrandpaBill took me into the house. My legs were like jelly and I couldn’t stop shaking and crying. He just held me for a while. I could feel that he was crying to. When we’d both calmed down he asked me if I’d eaten anything and I replied no and I didn’t want to eat now anyway. He gave me one of his ‘withering’ looks and told me to go and dress while he fixed me a sandwich and we would go to the hospital to see what was going on. I really imagined that I wouldn’t be allowed to go. I imagined that I’d be waiting at home while the adults all knew that was going on. I flew upstairs and dressed in double quick time. Looking in the mirror I was horrified with my face so I splashed on lots of cold water and combed my hair through. Splashing your face with cold water doesn’t help much. It just makes you look like you splashed your face with cold water.

GrandpaBill has always been a ‘busy’ person. I think that making my sandwich was good therapy for him. He’d made enough for an army, I don’t think he’s heard of snack machines in public places. Together we locked up the house, then we drove round to his house in dad’s car and locked up and got back into dad’s car for the drive to the hospital. Before we set off we both looked at one another. We didn’t know what we’d find when we got there.

Charlotte: She just lay there…

I really thought that she would just get up again. She didn’t, she just lay there. I was sure that she was dead. I started to scream for dad and ran downstairs and out into the street to where she was lying. Dad came very quickly behind me. Other people were running to help and to see what happened too. GrandpaBill lives very close and it was him who dragged me away, telling me that they needed room to help mom. An ambulance came really quickly and took her away with dad. All I wanted to do was turn round to check she wasn’t completely covered up like a dead person but GrandpaBill didn’t understand at first and held me very tightly. He eventually understood what I was trying to do, so I just managed to see her white face and blood all in her hair as she was carried into the ambulance…