She arrives home from her shift, stroking the teeth of her keys in her pocket, before gripping her decision, and easing it into the lock. Her other hand grasps the handle, and turns, pushing forward. She steps from the redbrick alcove through the door, taking her key back, and transfers her hold to the inner handle. Leaning on the door closes it and she deflates to the ground with a sigh. It had been a long day.

She knew he’d been there, even though she’d not seen him; the hurried to-ing and fro-ing of the nurses pausing for that moment while someone punches for security on the touchtone phone on the front desk. She’d been left conflicted for the rest of the day. Her rounds were met with awkwardness and hesitation, her in-patients insisting that they’d be fine for another day, and that she should go home and get some rest. Nevertheless, she took it in her stride, and carried on, going by feel, just like she always did. Mr Johnson’s new hip finally felt like it had settled enough for him to go home, and she’d found on her way out that the bereaved family of jolly old Mrs Tolston had left a small bouquet of flowers, lilies and chrysanthemums, as a thanks for the care she’d provided.

They were lying almost face down now, on the floor next to her, as she took a moment to close her eyes and regain herself, breathing deeply. Her hands lifted and smoothed back across her grey hair, converging on the elasticated loop loosely holding it back. She’s not old though, probably in her mid thirties. The creeping onset of crow’s feet to border her pale blue eyes, combined with the colour of her hair often misled people.

The water echoes around the sink as she lowers the flowers into the water, and proceeds to make her way across the tiled floor to the fridge. Bread, cheese, ham, a small stack forms resting on the shelf of her arm. She butters just one slice of bread before she hears the noise from upstairs, a thumping and screaming. The knife clatters to the floor as she runs, catching her shoulder on the door frame as she passes. She stumbles up the stairs, slipping on the loose carpet of the penultimate step, to the first floor, heading for the second door on the left, for her daughters room.

She doesn’t see his fist coming. It connects with her eye socket, and she falls, rolling to her back. A boot connects with her stomach, winding her. She lays there, foetal, and shaking. Her sobbing desperation is only renewed by the voice of her daughter.

“Mummy?” The young girl questions quietly, as she is carried past. She claws frantically at the ankles of her attacker as he moves, before he stops. With his free hand he wrenches her to top of the staircase by her hair, and throws her down. Her outstretched and flailing limbs do nothing to stop her fall, leaving her barely conscious at the bottom. The footsteps pass her again, this time her daughter and younger son screaming, as they are dragged. The latch on the door opens, and a voice shoots.

“They’re mine too.” The door slams.

———————————————————-

It had been almost a year since then. She’d managed to press the emergency response button she carried round her neck before she completely blacked out, but her friends were busy and didn’t hear the alarm. In fact, it had been so long since they’d visited, they could barely remember which house was hers. Eventually, when they did arrive, climbing out of the blue taxicab, the ambulance and police were already there. The door hadn’t slammed shut properly, and a concerned, busy-bodying, neighbour had come to investigate. Better than nothing. She’d been taken back to the hospital she came home from hours earlier and treated, kept there for as long as they could.

There’d been no sign of her children since then, or her ex-husband. Rumours flew past occasionally, that he’d skipped the country with them, or worse.

By the time she returned to work, her ward was full of new patients, and new voices, new personalities. Everything still had that dullness. The first few weeks she’d just not stopped working, her cheerful demeanour worn, until the point where the hospital had arranged someone to escort her home, for her own sake.

She found herself on a day off, sorting through her old clothes. She took a deep inhalation from each garment, and based her decision to keep it or donate it on how musty it smelled. She remembered a shoe box she’d kept in the base of her wardrobe. Full of cassettes, recordings of some of the first song’s she’d fallen in love with, and other trinkets. Something was wrong, something missing. She emptied the contents of the box to the floor, spreading the tapes and treasures and memories about with her hands. She’d had that since the first time she was assaulted majorly, from the first time she was in the hospital because of him. She hadn’t needed it after the surgery failed to stop the deterioration: the black eye-patch that had protected her useless left eye while her vision in the right completely faded. That was 5 years ago now, but he’d taken that too.