My father stopped speaking to me when I dropped out of medical school to care for my sick boyfriend. Five years later he drove over to take me home — and the moment he walked into our front room he stopped mid-sentence and said this can’t be real.

Then, last Tuesday, my phone rang and it was him.

He said, without any greeting at all: “Give me your address. I’m coming to take you home. You’ve thrown away enough of your life.”

I could have argued. I have argued with that man in my head roughly four thousand times over five years and I know exactly how each version ends.

So I read him the address, twice, because he wrote it down.

He knocked at four-forty. He barely greeted me. He said something about how long it would take to pack and how there was no reason for me to be embarrassed.

I stepped aside and let him in.