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My mother comes into the room. She just pulls up a chair and sits down on the other side of the bed, with an attitude that says I am allowed to be here.

“A friend of mine,” she says. “She’s a nurse here. She’s known me for thirty years, she knows my maiden name, and she saw Mabel’s name on the ward register.” A pause. “She called me to ask if it was the same family.”

Mabel stares at her.

“That,” Mabel says, with great precision, “is a breach of patient confidentiality. I am going to sue!” She’s stuttering, panicking.

“Sure.” My mother rolls her eyes and smooths down her pants. “I imagine it’s a gray area.”

“I imagine it is absolutely not.”

“Mabel—” Mom’s eyes soften, and she takes in her sister. She looks frail and sick.

“I didn’t want this,” Mabel says.

The composure in her voice begins to crack.

“I didn’t want you arriving here because somebody told you I was ill. I don’t need you looking at me with sad eyes and deciding you have to feel sorry for me.”

“I’m not looking at you with sad eyes.”

“You are.” She seethes.

“I’m looking at you like you’re my sister.”

Something slips loose in my mother’s voice.

“My sister, who I haven’t seen in sixteen years. But I’ve wanted to.”

Mabel’s expression hardens, but her chin trembles once before she controls it. “Sixteen years,” she whispers. “Has it really been that long?”

“Yes.”

“You could have come before now.”

“I—” My mother stops. A shadow moves across her face. “I sent emails. Over the years. Several of them. When I didn’t hear back, I thought you’d decided you didn’t want⁠—”

“I didn’t receive any emails, Catherine.”

My mother goes still.

“Not one?”

Mabel shakes her head. “Whatever address you have, it’s old, I didn’t receive them. I thought you’d chosen silence.” She pauses. “I thought after Ruth. After everything with Dad. I thought you’d decided you were also done with me.”

“I was never done with you.”

“You didn’t say that at the time.”

“I was in my early thirties.” My mother’s voice has the first fracture in it. “He was our father, and I didn’t know how to— I should have found the words, I know that. But I was there with you, Mabel. I thought being there was the same as saying something.”

“It wasn’t.”

“No.” My mother looks sad. “I understand that now.”

Mabel looks at the window. The light is doing something pale and thin through the blinds.

“Ruth and I had been together for two years,” she says. “We were happy. And he found out and decided—well, you know what he decided. No daughter of his was going to be queer.” She doesn’t look away from the window. “I knew you wouldn’t care about that part, Catherine. I knew your heart was good; you didn’t care that she was a woman. What I needed was for someone to stand next to me and say to him: This is her life. I accept her. And you didn’t. You didn’t defend me.”