Three Hours and Forty Minutes

Ruki summoned me to hers on the last Sunday in June. The message came at one minute past ten, which she does on purpose: Sunday. Mine. Bring nothing, I’ve got wine. Don’t be brave about it.

I drank most of the bottle and told her the rules were working, and she said “Mm,” and refilled my glass, and we watched half a film neither of us was watching.

At the door she said: “You’ve left two things out of your account.”

“I’ve left nothing out.”

“You’ve told me about a memo and a hearing and a scaffolder,” Ruki said. “You haven’t told me about the daughter.”

So. The daughter.

—

Her name is Ada and she was fourteen that spring, and I met her on the eleventh of April in the foyer of a leisure centre in Redbridge, because of a chess tournament and a lie I didn’t tell.

What…