Inès was like her. She gave nothing away, never talked much about her life. It was a quality Sarah appreciated. In Inès, she could see the young lawyer she had once been. She had chosen her, when the firm was interviewing for the junior positions. Inès was hard-working, precise, and highly efficient. She was a brilliant lawyer, the best of her group. She would go far, Sarah had told her one day, if she stacked the odds in her own favour.

And so how could she possibly have known that Inès would be bringing her mother to hospital that very day for a check-up?

Sarah had noted ‘CA’ in her diary. Not the initials of her mystery lover, not Carl Asselin, the handsome lawyer in the neighbouring team, with his uncanny resemblance to a young George Clooney. No, the ‘consultant’s appointment’ was with Dr Haddad, Sarah’s oncologist, who was not, alas, noted for his Hollywood looks.

When Inès had asked her, last week, for an exceptional day’s leave, Sarah had agreed, made a mental note, and promptly forgotten. Things had a habit of slipping her mind lately, doubtless due to how extremely tired she was.

Soon, the two women would meet in a waiting room of the oncology ward at the university hospital. The same expression of surprise would register on both their faces. Sarah would be rendered speechless. And Inès would cover the awkwardness of the situation by introducing her mother.

‘This is Sarah Cohen, the partner I work with.’

‘Delighted to meet you, Madame.’

Sarah would be polite and give nothing away. It wouldn’t take Inès long to figure out what her boss was doing there, in the middle of the afternoon, on a weekday, in a corridor of the oncology department, with a sheaf of X-rays under her arm. One moment from now, everything would come crashing down: the supposed affair, the lovers’ lunches, the secret rendezvous, the late-afternoon trysts.

Sarah would be unmasked.

She tried to save face by claiming she had got the wrong waiting room, that she had come to visit a friend. She knew Inès wouldn’t be fooled. Her colleague would quickly piece everything together: her two-week absence last month, which had surprised everyone, the string of out-of-office meetings that she had attended lately, her pallor, her weight loss, her collapse in court. Clues that now became proof, material evidence.

Sarah wanted to disappear, to dissolve, to soar into the air like the all-powerful superheroes the twins loved so much. Too late.

She felt suddenly stupid, trembling at the sight of a junior staff member, as if she had been caught red-handed, like a criminal. She didn’t need to justify herself to Inès, she owed her nothing. Not her, nor anyone else.