Eleven Sorries
Where Mila grew up, you say sorry when you have done something wrong. That is the whole rule. She moved to Manchester on a Sunday, and on Monday she started counting.
The first was on the bus. A man wanted to get past her to the door. “Sorry,” he said, and she moved, and he got off. He wasn’t sorry about anything.
Two and three were in the shop on the corner. “Sorry?” said the woman behind the till, which meant she hadn’t heard. Mila asked again. “Sorry — course,” the woman said, and gave her a bag.
Four was hers. She stepped on a man’s foot in the queue.
“Sorry!” the man said.
That was five. His foot, his sorry.
Six and seven were two people at the same door, both stopping and both starting again.
Eight came from a man in the bank who was complaining about a letter. “Sorry, but that’s not what it says here.” He wasn’t sorry. He was angry.
Nine and ten belonged to a boy on a bike and the woman he nearly hit.
Eleven was in the café at twelve o’clock. A man knocked a woman’s coffee off the table. He picked up the cup, said it quietly, and bought her another one.
Eleven sorries in one morning. Only one of the ten she heard was an apology, and it was the quietest.