Patrick, ironically for a medical professional, whose job is to observe, seems to see very little indeed, at least when it comes to her. He persistently mistakes her for someone better than she is, as though his gaze stops just short of her. He frequently expresses his love for her, but the truth is that he doesn't know her very well, and she is sure that should he need to fill out a missing persons form, he would be distressed to realise that he doesn't know her height, her weight, her dress size. He would possibly even be unsure of her exact age and birthday. Although he would probably get her hair and eyes right, as she has the same hair and eyes as almost every woman of Bengali descent. She imagines him filling out this part of the form with confidence, with relief, even: hair: black, eyes: brown.

She didn't leave a note this time, as she has no idea what she would have put in it; apart from saying that she had left, but her absence would do this anyway. Wouldn't it? Was it possible that Patrick would come home and go to work and come home and go to work and not notice until the weekend that she was missing, assuming that she was out shopping or working late in the faculty library, especially as she has recently been in the business of avoiding him in order to steer clear of the difficult conversation about babies that he seems so intent on pursuing. Was she wrong in assuming that her absence would be more noticeable than her presence? They live parallel, independent lives, and have always done so; he complains that even when she's in, she's out. When at home she supposes that she is not much more than a small creature curled