I was in the cinema on a Sunday morning when I got a bunch of texts from a family member. She was messaging me to say the pictures I’d posted of my mother confused her and that my mother and I look exactly the same. I remember when I read the messages I laughed and wrote back ‘hang on, let me send you a pic of both of us together so you know that we’re not actually the same person’

And I opened my photo gallery on my phone and I scrolled up looking for my favourite picture of my mother and me. As I was scrolling, I came across a picture that he’d sent me months ago that I hadn’t remembered that I’d saved. It was a picture of him all dressed up at a fancy event and he was laughing with a group of friends.

I remember the first time I saw that picture I thought ‘god, he looks so happy’ and all I could see was the joy on his face, his really big smile. It made me happy, this picture. So when I scrolled past it that Sunday morning, I stopped to look at it again. Only, when I looked at it that time I saw the picture very differently. There was only one thing I could see when I looked at it that morning. But just then, the film had started so I had to put my phone away and stew about what I’d seen for the next nearly two hours.

When I got home, I pulled my phone out again and looked at the picture. I thought …surely not. It can’t be. But I knew now that I’d seen it, I’d have to ask. So I did.

Are you married? I sent to him in a message.

Sorry, what? he responded.

Are you married? I repeated.

Where has this come from? he said.

It’s a simple question, with a yes or no answer. That I see you haven’t yet answered.

We went back and forth like that until eventually, yes he turned out to be married. And my suspicion at seeing him in that picture surrounded by his friends with a ring on his left ring finger turned out to be a legitimate suspicion.

In the anger of that first hour after finding out I’d searched through our messages and found two times in the two years we’d known each other where I’d brought up his marital status. The first within a month knowing each other where he’d explicitly written ‘I am not married, I have never been married’ and another time where I’d brought it up and he’d brushed it off.

I feel like I was in shock after that. I couldn’t tell if I didn’t feel anything when I found out or if I felt so much that I’d had to block it all out to get through this. I suspect the latter.