‘Here’s how it feels to me.’ I turn to face Lacy properly. ‘We have a child. That’s how it feels. He might call me Mike and call someone else Dad, but he gets me to sing to him across the Pacific Ocean. Me. What I’m doing feels a lot like parenting. I’m okay with it, with what we’ve got. I’m okay with Cedar. If he’s the only person I ever parent, and I never appear on any documentation that says I’m doing it, I’m okay with that. Okay’s the wrong word. I’m . . .’ There’s no good word, just a feeling. ‘Complete.’ It’s a Hallmark-card word, a movie-of-the-week word. ‘I’m good. We are the family I need.’

Lacy nods. She scrunches her eyes closed and her cheeks go blotchy. ‘Yep.’ She takes a shuddering breath in. ‘Yeah.’

I reach out to her, put my hand on her arm. She takes a step towards me.

‘We’ve got a good future, the three of us.’ The song is gone but my head is still cluttered. ‘If that’s how it is. Cedar growing up, you and me getting old and having adventures. Coming back here, going places we’ve never been. Never trying to sell a single blade of bento grass or trying to dominate the world market in anything.’

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I want that.’ She takes the sleeve of my T-shirt in her hand, presses it against her eyes and shakes her head at the damp blotches she leaves behind. ‘Yeah.’

‘We’ve got to make the most of it.’

Some interrupted night in the future, Cedar will get me to sing ‘Throw Your Arms Around Me’ to him for the last time. And I won’t know it’s the last until long after, until I’ve forgotten that specific time. I won’t know that he’s decided dreams are just dreams, and songs are no longer required.

At eight, Cedar is already not seven, already not six. Every moment you have with a child rushes away to the past.

‘So, Simon has been busy upstairs,’ Faye tells us. Her hands are clasped together in front of her. Her face has a serious look on it. She is standing at the foot of the stairs, having just come down from a higher floor.

The dishwasher is halfway through its cycle. The baking trays and cake tin are on the dish rack. Lacy and I are sitting at the dining table with glasses of mineral water. We finished the kitchen jobs and found ourselves in a silent house, both Simon and Faye elsewhere.