It was early and I was naïve, granted, and as I leaned over and inhaled the cheesecake and it got the saliva glands flowing of course, he struck, pushing my face clean into the wet pie with a resounding splat!

I emerged to the deafening sounds of Tenoch’s screeching laughter. ‘Now it a party, eh? Hahahahaha!’

‘Mi Gente’ came on the radio – the Beyoncé version – and he turned it up extra loud and we danced around the kitchen, chunks of cream cheese plopping from my face to the floor tiles. I scraped the mixture off my cheeks, tasting my delicious fingers. We danced until we couldn’t breathe for laughing.

He gave me the day off my cleaning duties and we ate the rest of the cake watching a Golden Girls marathon beginning with Blanche going through the menopause and ending with her, Dorothy and Rose going to a nudist hotel.

‘The children sent things for you as well,’ said Tenoch, bringing in a small bag full of treats – pictures drawn by Saúl and Mátilda, a whole heap of candy, and a comic book David had drawn and illustrated all by himself.

‘Did you see them?’ I asked him, as I took the box.

‘Yeah, I saw them yesterday. They are all well.’

‘And Celestina?’

‘She is well too.’

‘So did you find out what was going on?’

‘No, not yet. But I will. And I almost forgot your main present…’

He disappeared out to the broom closet in the hall and he returned moments later wheeling in a brand-new mountain bike with a big purple bow tied to the handlebars.

‘Wow, what’s this?’

Tenoch beamed. ‘Yeah of course. Go ahead, ride it around la terraza. See if the saddle needs adjusting for you.’

I rode a bike for the first time in years. I rode it round the lawn and once I’d got my balance and found my speed, it was the most fun I’d had for ages. It was the best present I’d been given, apart from Tink.

When I rode back indoors, there was another present waiting for me on the kitchen island – a large brown envelope, wrapped in another purple bow. Tenoch patted it and slid the parcel towards me. ‘One more for you.’

Inside was a slightly worn American passport with a new photo of myself post-surgery, plus new paperwork. I had a social security number, Part A and Part B medical insurance, even a brand whole birth certificate.

‘I fulfil my promise to you, gatita. You cannot get better documents. They are state of the art. And they all check out, I promise.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, staring down at my official new name, 25 September 1990 birthday and whole-assed new parents. ‘Although, technically, I paid for this myself, didn’t I?’

‘Yeah, you did. But I bought you the bike.’

‘So you couldn’t make me any younger than twenty-nine?’