Eight. She told me it was teething.

Nine. She said eleven words in my doorway that were, in effect, a delegation of medical decision-making to me. You decide.

You’ve always been the decider.

Ten. Within ninety seconds of hearing the word femur, her husband asked whether the X-ray could establish a time.

Eleven. Within a further ninety seconds, my sister told a physician that the baby had been perfectly fine when she left her with me.

Twelve. An hour later she leaned into my ear and asked me to say I had found it after they left.