Don't Beg When I'm Gone

Owen Patel is a military doctor in the nineteen eighties whose parents have always put his adopted brother first, in every allocation of money and attention that a family makes. He has absorbed it for years. Then he finds out his fiancee has been unfaithful. He gives himself seven days: break the engagement, cut ties with the family, and transfer to the capital with Zoe Quentin, the commanding officer arranging the posting. He tells nobody. During that week his family and his fiancee carry on as though nothing has changed, and Isaac Kane keeps feeding them a version of events that makes Owen the one at fault, so they keep going at him without any sense that they are on a clock. He does not correct any of it. On the seventh day he leaves. It is after that that they work out what Isaac Kane has been doing, and start trying to find Owen.