Kay’s mother sewed beautifully, but considered herself a novice beside her younger sister. “Anyone can do plain sewing,” she would say, “but your Auntie Ruth is a genius with the needle.” Then she went misty-eyed with recollection. “Remember the year she came early to help with the ballet costumes? For the recital? They were tricky as can be, those little satin insets and the netting on the hats and at the wrists. Itchy to work with too, especially in hot weather. We worked right down to the wire. But we got them done.”

“I don’t remember,” Kay said.

This was not true-she did remember, but saying she didn’t was a way to strike out at her mother, letting her know she distrusted the touched-up trivia that formed the bulk of her remembrances and the treacly voice she used when invoking them. “I don’t remember.” She said it harshly, tossing it off.

“Well,” her mother said, wistful, “you were very young. Just a baby. Probably too young to get anything much out of ballet lessons.”

There was a coolness between them at this time because of Philip. Her mother had taken Kay aside. She had things to say to her. Handsome men, she said, can bring about problems in a marriage. They think they can go their own way. They get spoiled by flattery, by women falling about them. This leads to a lack of responsibility on their part.You can’t count on them, and that’s what marriage is in the long run, two people counting on each other, in good times and bad as it says in the wedding service, always having, no matter what, that one person in the world you can turn to.

The trouble was, this wasn’t advice she was giving. It was prophecy. And already too late.

Kay has always believed herself fortunate in having sisters. Her sister Joan, white-haired, heavy in the hips, already several times a grandmother, lets her talk on and on. She thinks it does her good, and it does. Kay’s other sister Dorrie is equally sympathetic, but has a different style. She prods and interrupts and brings up tricky points. “What do you mean he forgets you?” she asked once. “Do you mean just birthdays and anniversaries and so on?”

That too, but much, much more. Once he met an old friend in a restaurant and they decided to fly to Whitehorse just like that. He phoned her the next day to let her know.

“Once,” Dorrie pronounced, shrugging. “A lapse.” Then asked, “And other women?”

Of course there were other women, almost from the start, but that wasn’t really the problem. “He forgets I exist. Who I am. He looks at me but sees the wallpaper. He’s courtly in the wrong way, like a man on automatic pilot. Even in bed-”

“Yes?”