She asked about our siblings. I had no idea how any one of them was doing. Since I started university, every one of them had dropped out of my life. I was tired of the way they made fun of me, of their lack of support. Like contestants in a reality TV show, they got voted off one by one. Staving off the rising feeling of negativity inside me, I simply told her that I had no idea.

How could someone close a door for eleven years and then expect to pop their head in and ask, “How is everyone?” I told her that these days, only me and my sons remained in each other’s orbits. I had no new information to offer her.

We were about two minutes into our talk when I decided to put up the barrier. Anger came over me. Don’t indulge it, I told myself. I tugged at the edges of the cloak of shame that was choking me, fighting it. I straightened my shoulders. I pulled the cloak away from my throat. She was the one who had hung up the phone eleven years ago. Who was she to be able to dial out and ask, “What’s new?”

I held my ground behind the barrier. Sister seemed stuck at the other end of the phone, looking for things to talk about. Or wanting to say something but not knowing how.

Eventually, she told me that she had lost her only child, her son. Her boy, Matt, who is three months older than my Lance. She had not lost him to death, but to the divorce. I reminded her that no matter how old children are, divorce affects them in different ways. After a short silence, she remarked that she had heard that my partner and I had split up years before. I nodded and then realized she couldn’t see me nodding from the other end of the line.

“Yes. The best thing we ever did for each other!” I said. I am sure she could hear the smile in my words. It’s the truth—his leaving was the best thing we had ever done for each other. I smiled because I remembered the day that he left and the sadness I felt at the time. But three weeks later, an incredible sense of happiness had flooded me.

I had jubilantly gone out and bought a new queen-sized bed, scrubbed the walls, hung up all the pictures I was never allowed to show off in all the decades of our marriage. Within three weeks I had become ecstatic over the fact that one of us had had the good sense to make a change. My heart was free at last.