Then she said the thing that she had clearly been carrying for a while, and which she had chosen — deliberately, I now understand — not to say for eighteen months.

“I didn’t like her.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.

You think I didn’t like her the way sisters don’t like girlfriends.” Samantha put her cup down.

“In January, at your birthday, Hannah asked me if she could come and live with me sometimes.