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The night the phone rings at some ungodly hour, I can’t seem to wake up. I can hear a distant pealing but it’s ingrained in my dream.

In the dream I’m relaxing at home in the early afternoon watching Oprah when the doorbell rings. This is, for some reason, alarming. I jump up almost screaming. Who is at the door? Have they come to get me? What will Seamus think?

In a panic, I run to the window, which is somehow on the ground floor, and jump out. I try to run but my dressing gown keeps wrapping around my ankles and my slippers are flopping sideways. Whoever is at the door is chasing me, gaining on me, I can feel their breath on my neck; they are coming now and no matter how hard I try I can’t get away. I fall and am pounced upon by a midget policeman.

For his size, the midget policeman is strong and wiry. He has a red beard and wears a green police uniform. ‘We’ve got you now,’ he keeps yelling, and laughing in a high-pitched voice. He hauls me to my feet and twists my arms behind my back, fastening them in a pair of handcuffs. Then he attaches heavy iron manacles to my ankles. My limbs are thus pinned and as he drags me down the path I can only take tiny steps, but he walks faster and pulls me by my arm until I am walking on an angle so steep I feel I am falling. Perhaps this is all a dream, I think to myself, and I shut my eyes. But then I can’t open them again. They seem welded shut. Then I realise the sound of his laughter has morphed into the ringing of the phone.

Seamus leans over me in bed and answers it, making serious, capable noises into the receiver. Noises that betray nothing. Seamus has the ability to be instantly alert at any time of the day or night; I seem to be sleepy all the time lately, and now I can’t wake up properly. My eyelids are fused together, and I can only open one at a time and then only a little bit. My brains aren’t helping—you would think the two of them could make each other a cup of coffee or something. By the time Brain One asks Brain Two to open my right eye or lift my left arm and put it through the sleeve, Brain Two has slumped to the floor of the red padded room and nodded off. When it doesn’t receive a reply, Brain One becomes so disgruntled it also falls straight back to sleep.

Before I know it Seamus is up, changed into jeans and a sweat shirt. He gathers my tracksuit and lifts my jammies (mauve baby-doll type that were probably sexy when he bought them but are now, well, a little tight) up over my outstretched arms and dresses me. He practically carries me to the car. When I wake up we are in a carpark.

It isn’t until we are in the hospital waiting room that I really comprehend what has happened. Jill is there, also in a tracksuit, although hers is a crushed cranberry velour instead of a stained and stretched pastel blue like mine. Still, I never imagined she would even own a tracksuit. She certainly would never sweat. I’ve never seen her hair like this either—dead straight instead of her usual curls. Obviously the result of a silk pillow slip. I must get one. She is not wearing makeup and her eyes look tiny and pale like pig eyes, and she has brown spots along her jaw line.

Harry is there too, wearing a pin-striped navy suit and turquoise tie, as if it was early afternoon. Perhaps he’s just arrived home from a midnight board meeting. Or perhaps he sleeps in his suit for improved efficiency. Or it isn’t a suit, but jammies designed to look like a suit, sold by mail order from Suitland. Or (my preferred explanation) perhaps he has no option because the suit has been surgically attached to his skin as part of a bizarre initiation ceremony at the bank involving donkeys and paddles.

Hospitals have a unearthly feeling at that hour. This is a public hospital, not far from our mother’s house, the one we grew up in, the one that we moved to when I was at primary school. The waiting room has plastic orange chairs against the walls and in an island in the middle. The chairs are in rows, joined together to prevent people moving, throwing or stealing them. The chairs hold an assortment of people waiting to be seen, though some of them are lying down and groaning. The Germphobics would be spraying each other with disinfectant and praying for levitation.

Jill and Harry haven’t met Seamus before and, except for the obviously horrible circumstances, it is an ideal occasion for a first meeting. No diffidence. No awkwardness. Plenty to talk about— three take-charge kind of people discussing options and possibilities. I sit next to a nice Somali boy who can’t move his storm-cloud coloured sausage-shaped fingers after drunkenly punching an automatic teller machine that swallowed his card. I have a little doze on his other shoulder.

Seamus wakes me. There’s a nurse, saying something.

She is all right, the nurse says. She has some smoke inhalation and some minor burns and was distressed when the ambulance brought her in, but they’ve given her a mild sedative and she’s sleeping now. They’ll keep her in for observation and to check her lung function during the night, but overall she is very lucky. Sophie the nextdoor neighbour saw the smoke, and her son put out the fire with the garden hose before the brigade even arrived. The fireman told the nurse that the damage to the house is also minimal and with some fast work from a few tradesmen it will be functional at least when she gets out of hospital. Sophie was most insistent mother be told that Mr Parker is okay.

Jill storms across to the far side of the waiting room and back again. She rifles in her handbag for some gum, and throws her bag on the chair, and says she blames herself and that mother shouldn’t be living alone in that big house and should have moved in with them long ago. Harry clears his throat and fiddles with his tie, pulling it away slightly from his reddening, chicken-skin throat. (If his suit is attached to his body, the stitches obviously aren’t at the neck. Are they at the groin?)

The nurse says it’s nobody’s fault. These things happen with older people and there’s not much you can do. Jill says what on earth did happen? The nurse says, from what I could gather before your Mother became too drowsy to speak, apparently she couldn’t sleep and she was hungry and decided to make herself a midnight snack. A frozen chicken Kiev. She read the instructions on the packet very carefully. It said medium oven, forty minutes. And she only put it on for thirty. But she didn’t want to go to all the trouble of lighting the oven so she popped the whole thing, chicken, foil tray, cardboard box and all, in the microwave.

A little later they let us in to see Mother. She is in a large room with four beds, but hers is the only one occupied. We aren’t to stay long. We aren’t to disturb her. She is sleeping so we stand around her bed, looking down at her, not quite knowing what to say to each other.

Her face is the same colour as the sheets, a dingy grey; her hair is pushed straight back and one hand is bandaged above the wrist. She looks deflated. Normally she is like a fat-faced bird, a cross between Celine Dion and a galah: a body like a broom handle and round cheeks full of seeds. Now it’s like the seeds have all fallen out. It’s strange to see her face so immobile—not speaking, grimacing or sucking her teeth, which she does when she’s concentrating or telling a cheerful story about dying in an unexpected and painful way.

For some reason I think of the birthday presents she gave me as a child. She was the most wonderful gift giver when I was small— it seemed that whatever my most secret wish, there it was, beautifully wrapped at the end of my bed on the morning of my birthday. Once she gave me a huge cardboard box covered in brown paper with a stiff iridescent gold bow. The box was so large and heavy she left it in the middle of the living room where she wrapped it the night before. In the morning when I tore the paper away, it was full of books. She isn’t much of a reader except for true crime, gothic horror and (probably the most gruesome of the three) tabloid newspapers, but, on advice from a confident and superior sales assistant, she chose my first Austen and Conan Doyle, my first Poe and Wilde.

Another year she promised me a new bedspread and took me to choose it the week before, but then told me the store had sold out so it wouldn’t be ready for my birthday. I don’t recall being upset, but perhaps my memory is being kind. I think I was only a little disappointed for her: it wasn’t her fault the shop was out of stock and I had to wait. So that birthday morning there was no gift from my parents, only a beaded bracelet from Jill.

When I got home from school, not only was the bedspread on my bed, but she had taken a day off work and now my room, the walls, even the ceiling, were repainted my favourite colour: the orange I always called tan, an exact match for Cuisenaire rod number 10. There was a new tan chair, a new bed and a shiny tan lampshade that cast the whole room in a rosy orange glow. I still don’t know how she found that perfect colour. That day, standing in the hall next to my mother, her pudgy arms shaking from painting the ceiling and her face speckled tan, was possibly the happiest of my life.

Now Jill, Seamus and Harry are murmuring, and I force myself to pay attention. It’ll be much better for her, Harry says. These stubborn old people, they never think of anyone but themselves. Jill says, anything could happen to her she could take a fall and lie there all day and all night. My granny loved it, Seamus says, once we got her settled she made lots of new friends now someone comes in to do her hair and they play bingo. Good man, Harry says. You’re absolutely right it’s for her own good and she can always watch TV besides she’ll be happier among other old people.

Then he says, there’s safety in numbers.

Somewhere inside me something stirs. I can’t explain it. A little voice speaks. It isn’t Brain One or Brain Two. Perhaps it’s me.

‘A home,’ I say. ‘You’re talking about putting her in a nursing home.’

Harry laughs and Jill says yes Grace yes we’re talking about putting her in a home it’s obvious she can’t live alone any more.

‘Mother would hate that.’

Jill walks over to me and picks up my hand and holds it and says, we don’t have many options Grace think of how we’d feel if she stayed at home and had an accident think how you’d feel then.

‘But she loves her neighbours and the church and her garden.

You know how much that house means to her.’

It happens to the best of us, Harry says, it’ll happen to us one day too, hey Jilly besides Grace you heard what Seamus said they have hairdressers and bingo.

Bingo. Those little cards. Those funny press-down pens.

All those numbers.

Mother is lying in the bed right in front of us while we are speaking about her. Ants. They want to turn her into an ant. When I was teaching those fiery little minds, I knew they would eventually be worn down by the drudgery and disappointments of life. Ants. They would all become average, huddling little ants, indistinguishable and unremarkable. And when they were no longer useful they would live in a garbage tip filled with other ants. Staring at the walls. Their belongings, gathered with so much care, would scatter. Will scatter. They will cease. My mother will cease.

She’s mumbling, Harry says. Grace?

‘She doesn’t like bingo,’ I say. ‘She loves her house. What about Mr Parker? What about all her orchids?’

Harry says what? What did you say? I can’t understand her.

Jill says Grace our mother could have died that’s all that matters we can find another home for Mr Parker and the orchids don’t even flower nursing homes have gardens too you know some of them even have cats the most important thing is she’ll be safe.

I force my eyes to stay open. I force my mouth to move. ‘Safe. That house has been her home for years,’ I say. ‘She has lived a life there. With her husband and her children. She’s a grown woman. It should be up to her if she stays or if she goes.’

Jill sighs. It’s a hard decision for us all Grace I understand that you don’t want to see her institutionalised after your experience the year before last but we can’t look after her we can’t keep her safe in a home she’ll have doctors and nurses and support and medication and she’ll be safe I thought you would understand that you of all people with what you’ve gone through lately.

Harry says, I hope you’re not suggesting we put her up we’ve got three kids you know she can’t have my study.

The ground tilts and I reach out for Seamus’s arm. My tongue has gone to sleep and my mouth seems to be full of treacle. ‘We haven’t even asked her. She’s healthy. She’s active. We could make it easier for her to stay.’

Seamus says, sweetie your sister is right it’s for the best.

I am unbearably tired. My right eye is closing and I can’t stop it.

Everyone wants what’s best for her sweetheart, Seamus says, this is all overwhelming and it’s late and the shock’s probably been too much for you you should probably try to have a rest.

He takes my arm and walks me to a corner of the room where there is an orange plastic chair, like the ones in the waiting room but a single. He stands in front of me with both hands around my upper arms and slowly sits me down. I sag into the chair, my head lolling.

Relax sweetheart just sit here and relax while we discuss it.

So the three of them go on discussing it. And me.

Harry says, God Jill she’s always been a bit odd but I can barely understand her. Seamus says, it’s not her fault it’s the medication there’s been a few side effects so they’ve started her on another kind her doctor says this is the transition period she’ll feel better in a few days God she’s been so brave I never imagined it would change her so much. Jill says, is there anything we can do to help her? Seamus says, she doesn’t seem to want to talk about it I’d do anything to help her but I don’t know what to do. Jill says, I know she’d never say it but she loves Mum very much so do we all it’ll be much better when Mum is somewhere she’ll be looked after. Harry says, actually, does your mother have any money? Your father’s insurance was quite a packet wasn’t it?

They’re probably right. I should let them handle it. I open my eyes a sliver and in her bed I see Mother turning her head from side to side. Perhaps she can hear us after all. Perhaps she can hear every word about packing her away in a nursing home. Could they not stop talking and let her sleep? Let me sleep. I am so tired. Please let me crawl in next to Mother in her hospital bed and put my head on her shoulder and have a little nap.