On my wedding night I hid under the bed to surprise my husband. His mother came in instead, sat down on the mattress above me, and put a call

accepted that without one second of thought, because it made the seating plan easier.

There was an empty chair at the brunch the next morning with her name card still on it, because the  hotel sets to the original list and nobody had told them.

Lorna saw it before I did. I watched her see it.

She picked the card up, read it, and put it face down on the tablecloth, and then carried on with her conversation.

Four seconds. She did not look round to see whether anybody had noticed.

I looked at that chair for a long time while Lorna had hold of my wrist.PART 5
And here is the part about my father, which I did not understand until I was thirty-one and lying under a  bed.