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."

I did not go home that day and have it out with him.

I sat in that waiting room until he came out at twenty past one in the afternoon.

Three hours and forty minutes, on one of those eleven chairs, with my sister sitting two seats along from me and neither of us saying very much.

He came through a set of double doors with his laptop bag over his shoulder, and he saw me in a chair by the water machine, and he stopped in the middle of that corridor.

And the first thing out of that man's mouth was not an explanation.

It was not an apology. It was not how did you find me and it was not who told you.

He looked at me sitting in that chair by the water machine with my coat still on, and he worked out in about two seconds how long I had been there.