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."

Dr Aduba. Thursdays, mostly. Some weeks two of them, which is the weeks that are not good.

The week I found out was a bad week.

That is the only reason there was anything to find. He had taken proper leave — a whole week of it, signed off — instead of the half days he had been running since about the middle of July.

And those half days are how a man manages four months of this without his own wife noticing anything at all.

Half days. For four months.

Booked into his work diary as client visits, with real client names on them, in a calendar I have access to and have never once opened in eleven years.

And the medication in that little white bottle beside the coffee machine is not the medication I thought it was.

He has taken something for his blood pressure since 2019.

Small white bottle. Lives on the counter by the coffee machine. Has lived there for six years.