Repayment was the minimum responsibility for money wrongfully spent, not a grand gesture of reconciliation.

Eleanor sent another voice note, this one crying that the family had been ruined by public embarrassment.

I could hear television music in the background and pictured her sitting in a comfortable room while recounting the humiliation of a declined charge.

I wondered whether she had any idea what it was like to wake up cold and hungry after major surgery.

I didn’t answer the recording.