An hour later I was driving across the city towards the hospital. My jacket was still pressed and the ribbons on my chest were catching the last of the light through the windscreen.
The nameplate says Colonel. Twenty-two years, and I made it in nineteen, which people used to mention.
In that car it meant nothing at all. I was not arriving as an officer. I was arriving as her mother, and those are two different people and I have spent most of my adult life pretending otherwise.
In the emergency department a nurse stepped across to stop me.
She said: ma’am, you can’t go through there—
I said: my daughter. Where is she?
Something in my face made her decide not to argue, and she pointed me towards the observation wing.
And I want to record that, because it matters later.
I did not persuade that woman. I did not explain myself. I looked at her in a particular way that I have been able to do since about 2011, and she stopped talking and pointed.
I have used that on a great many people over twenty-two years.
I have used it on my daughter.
Twice that I can specifically date. Once in 2016 about a course, and once in 2021 about that man.
