My husband left his medication at home, so I stopped by his office to bring it to him. But when I asked the receptionist to call him downstairs, she said, "Ma'am, your husband has been on leave for the past week."

And then my sister said something to him, about four words, and he nodded. Four times. Without lifting his head at all.

They went back inside together after about six minutes. He held the door.

I waited.

Forty minutes, in that car, with the keys in my hand and the coffee from the day before still in the cup holder.

And then I got out of my car and I crossed that road, and I went in through those doors — and I was about three feet inside before I understood.

It is a clinic.

Not an office. Not a solicitor's. Not whatever I had spent the night building in my head.

Not a hospital.

One of those outpatient places that is built to look like an office block from the car park.

I used to think that was cowardice on somebody's part. I now know it is deliberate, and I now know exactly who it is for, and I now know it is kind.