My sister kissed my husband in front of thirty people at her own anniversary party and called it a joke. Her husband had a wrapped present in his hands and an envelope she had never opened.

He put it in her hands and said, “Go on. Everyone’s here.”

And my sister stood in her own garden with thirty people watching and unwrapped a framed photograph.

Two people in a hotel car park in Ardmere at twenty past eight in the morning. Date in the corner. Her car.

She did not scream and she did not deny it. She held that frame face down against her dress for about four seconds and then she said, “Bram,” and that was the whole of what she got out.

My mother took the frame off her and looked at it, and then sat down on a garden chair.

And my husband said, “Bryony—” and I put my hand up, and to his credit he did not say anything else for the rest of that afternoon.

I did not shout either. I want that in because people expect the shouting.

There were two children in that house. Mine, six and nine, upstairs with an iPad and my cousin’s daughter.

Whatever else I was going to do, I was not doing it where they could hear it.