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."

Because the person standing next to him was my sister.
PART 2

Oriana.

Forty-five years old. My only sibling. Two years and four months older than me.

I have not spoken to that woman in four years and two months. Not a call. Not a card. Not one word at Christmas, four times running.

I did not go to her son's eighteenth. There was an invitation and I did not reply to it.

She did not come when we moved house. She sent nothing and I would not have opened it.

Four years and two months.

And there she was, standing in a car park on the other side of town at twenty past nine in the morning, with her hand on my husband's arm.

I did not get out of the car.

Not for forty minutes.

And I want to be honest about why, because four people have since assumed it was dignity.