On the drive home from that first appointment, she said, her father had been upset.

Not shouting — worse than shouting, in a way, because it was quiet and reasonable and impossible to argue with.

He had told her that her mother was under an enormous amount of stress at work just then.

That Martha was already exhausted, stretched to the edge.

That the household bills were piling up in a way Irene didn’t see and shouldn’t have to.

And that Irene, by turning this into a big medical production, by needing specialists and imaging and follow-ups, was making an already hard time harder for everyone she claimed to love.