She hands me the card, job done. She has managed to place an order entirely from Charlie’s Bakery in Anchorage, where number forty-five is ‘Spicy Won Ton (Szechuan Style)’. It and the sesame balls are on the Saturday-only menu, when Charlie’s cranks dim sum in Anchorage up to the max, in a midtown strip mall next to B&J’s hunting-and-fishing store and KFC. We’ve eaten there several times. Cedar sticks to pork buns and afterwards demands a chocolate eclair from the cake cabinet, as a reward for trying foreign food.

I turn the ‘one’ next to wontons in chilli oil into a ‘two’ and add xiaolongbao, since it’s a specialty of the restaurant, and a couple of other kinds of dumplings I think Lacy will try once she’s seen them.

The window gives us a view across the harbour. Below us and to our left, there’s a pier jutting out from another section of the shopping centre. It’s a cruise-ship terminal, with panels of sea-green windows and little sign of activity. A white cruise ship is docked, a yellow star on its red-and-blue funnel. The passengers are having their day in Hong Kong, many of them no doubt running amok in Harbour City. Beyond the ship, the buildings of Central march along the foreshore of Hong Kong Island and into the haze. Bumps of islands rise indistinctly from the water in the distance. The bay is being silently crisscrossed by working ships, ferries, a single junk, its red battened sails open like fans.

A sizzling plate arrives at a nearby table, and the mist that drifts our way is full of black beans and ginger and garlic.

‘See?’ I hold my hand up in the direction of the window, as if the view needs presenting and isn’t already there. ‘We can have a life . . .’

‘Really?’ she says. She’s looking at me, not the view. Her hands are in her lap and she’s sitting stiffly. ‘Did you bring me here to tell me that, or did you just think of it now?’

Our waiter steps up from behind me. ‘You have completed?’ he says, putting his finger on our order card.

‘Yes,’ Lacy says, smiling at him. ‘Thank you. And could I get a fork?’ She mimes a fork, without meaning to.

‘Yes.’ He looks at me.

‘No, I’m . . . okay with these,’ I tell him, picking up the chopsticks. ‘Thanks.’

It’s early days with the counselling, but at least we’ve started. Lacy has stopped treating the building we go to as if it’s full of traps. It’s not full of traps. Three rubber plants, two comfortably mismatched sofas and a friendly rescue moodle called Bodhi who urinates where he pleases – the vibe they’re aiming for is clear. Marley, the therapist, has declared it a safe place to say anything, but I don’t think Lacy has said everything yet.