Iris told me that the first thing she felt when she was finally diagnosed was relief. That it wasn’t Alzheimer’s. She had experienced sporadic short-term memory issues and had thought the worst, which is so unlike her. That’s more my area of expertise. It turns out that memory problems can be another symptom of MS. Another little gift, as Iris puts it. Left at her door like a cat leaves a dead bird.

But there was nothing relieving about Iris’s diagnosis.

Primary progressive multiple sclerosis.

“I’ve been upgraded,” Iris said when she came out of the hospital that day. The day she finally got the diagnosis. She didn’t want me to go with her that day. “It’s just routine,” she said. I insisted. I had a bad feeling. And yes, I do have a habit of expecting the worst. But I had observed some deterioration in Iris’s movements at that time. A heavier lean on her walking stick. A slower gait. A tautening of the skin across her face that hinted at fatigue and unexpressed pain.

“What do you mean? Upgraded?” I said. Already, I could feel my heart inside my chest, quickening. I knew how Iris could dress up a thing. Make it sound acceptable.

And she did her best that day.

But it isn’t easy to dress up primary progressive MS. “We’ll get a second opinion,” I said, as we walked down the corridor.

Iris stopped walking. “No,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because I know it’s true.” Her voice was quiet.

She was in a relationship at that time. Harry Harper. He was an artist and a year-round swimmer, which was where Iris met him. They met at sea.

Iris said theirs was a casual relationship and the only reason it had gone on so long was because of the sex, which she declared thorough. And she loved his name, being a fan of alliteration.

But she really liked him. I could tell. He was unselfconsciously handsome, interesting, and interested. And he was thoughtful. Kind. He always matched Iris’s pace, was careful not to hold too many doors open for her, and remembered that she disliked dates, so he never put them into the sticky toffee pudding he made for her because he knew that she loved sticky toffee pudding but hated dates.

He had no children and one ex-wife with whom he played squash once a week.

And while Iris didn’t believe in The One—one-at-a-time is her philosophy—I could tell that she thought a lot of Harry.

And then she got the upgrade as she called it, and she ended her relationship with him shortly after that. She said she refused to be a burden to anybody.

“You’re not a burden,” Harry said.

“I will be,” Iris told him.

“I don’t care,” he said. “That doesn’t matter to me.”

“It matters to me,” Iris told him.

And that was that.

I always tell the girls, when they complain about this or that, that they must look at the situation objectively and try to find something positive in it.