She had the taxi stop outside the senior housing and asked the driver to wait a moment. It wasn’t long before she came out with her mother and helped her into the car. She said the name of the hospital. It was rather far away.

‘There’s really no reason for it,’ said her mother passively with a sigh. ‘I was just thinking, when I called you, that maybe Asger would have time to drive me out there.’

‘He’s working a lot of overtime at the office.’

Vera could hear the unfriendly edge in her own voice, so she added, in a gentler tone:

‘We’re both busy. The pre-school teaching assistant is sick. But maybe he’ll be feeling better today.’

‘That would be nice, but I doubt it,’ said her mother.

Her entire life she always expected the worst.

The glare from a streetlight briefly lit her mother’s face. Her hat was askew on her white hair, and her head trembled continuously, but subtly. Vera knew it was sclerosis. Her mother called it nerves.

‘Villy was really startled when he saw his father yesterday,’ she said.

Her voice sounded slightly triumphant.

‘Afterward he said he had never seen him so low. Both he and Asta are so nice about driving me there. But they were invited out tonight, so they couldn’t do it.’

Asta was Vera’s sister-in-law, Villy’s third wife. Vera had been married three times too. But this time, she thought, Villy had gotten lucky. Asta was a sweet person, and she adored him.

‘You know I don’t have a driver’s license,’ Vera said in a tired voice. ‘And Ole gets so upset when I go out in the evening.’

Ole was her youngest, a late arrival, now seven years old.

‘I understand very well,’ muttered her mother. ‘But I didn’t mean for you to hire a taxi.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Vera forced herself to say.