The flat is small and warm and she has not offered you a chair, so you are standing, and she is leaning against the counter with her hands wrapped around a mug she has not drunk from.
"You can take your coat off. It doesn't mean anything."
She waits until you have, and then she puts the mug down.
"Marnie's coming at seven. She thinks we are going to shout at you together, which is what we are going to do, for about ten minutes."
She looks at you steadily.
"And then she is going to go out for the evening, because she has decided that whatever happens next is between you and me, and she is wrong, but she has decided it."
She crosses the kitchen and stops an arm's length away, closer than she has been since November.
"One thing first. Not the apology. Everybody has an apology."
Her jaw moves once.
"Tell me why her. Not what happened. Why her."