‘When he lined up the tickets for you to come here this time,’ Faye says, ‘I told him, “Three strikes and you’re out. This time you got to do it. It’s time to tell Michael and it’s time to tell Annabel.” It turned out he had to be Simone to tell you. Not something Simon could do on email, or on walks or over dinner. Not any time. So, Simone had to tell you. It’s her story to tell. First you and Lacy, then Annabel.’

‘Yes, Annabel,’ Simone says. ‘That’s scheduled for this evening, when she gets home from camp. Big day. You think about – I thought about – doing it much earlier with her. Show them it’s you from the start, when they’re babies – someone suggested that, in an online chat group. But then they’d tell their friends. She would have asked her friends about their daddies doing dress-ups. She would have talked. It would have changed things in a way that you can’t impose on a child.’ She turns, and some part of the silicone makes a scrunching noise. ‘I’m thirsty.’

‘Let me get you some water,’ Lacy says, moving to stand.

‘No, no,’ Simone says, moving too. ‘Thank you, but . . . there’s a particular method.’

She walks elegantly, her shoulders held back in a way Simon doesn’t hold his. Each step is measured, thought about, precisely right for the body she’s in, and all its curves.

She pours water from the jug in the fridge and finds a steel straw in a drawer.

‘You’re all watching me,’ she says. ‘We need some music.’

The TV remote is on the kitchen counter, and it skids across the granite as she picks it up. She presses, presses, presses and the TV comes on. The channel-change buttons are easier. She flicks past a golfer lining up a long putt and a re-run of Full House, and finds a channel playing the Buggles’ ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’.

‘Is everyone all right with music?’ she says. ‘We can still talk.’

Faye directs Lacy and me to the sofa. She and Simone take the armchairs at the ends, Simone sitting with her legs crossed.

My father had his first heart attack at work. That’s what my mother had said. He often worked late.

The video finishes, and the Sex Pistols come on – hazy crowd scenes, a flash of red hair all standing on end, Johnny Rotten’s malevolent chuckle. ‘Anarchy in the UK’.

‘They were scary then,’ Simon’s voice says. ‘Actually scary. We were in the UK not long after that. Now look at it. It’s a panto. You could play that to anyone.’

There are more crowd scenes, Johnny Rotten levering his microphone stand at speed, young and thin and bony, cheekbones, jawbone. Simone directs her straw between her lips, pushes it through the space, and drinks. She lowers the glass but the straw stays there until she pulls it down and it pops clear.