Hello Mother I am Well please tell Kitty in a tremulous but clear hand, as it well should be, having been practised over hours with the light slanting in through the tall windows. Through the tall windows, the lawn rolling away from the stone building like a banner unfurling. The light unfurling over the lawn, over the ledgers. The hands moving in unison over the ledgers like birds.

Later the people marvelled to see them so often rotting from the inside out, their skin breaking open, their inevitable fevers.

You can feel sorry but you can’t feel pity.