I still have the letter, actually. It’s crumpled from my tightened grip that morning, as I’d gazed at my results in disbelief, trying to figure out a way in which they told a different story. When Erin had come into the kitchen, pinning tendrils of loose hair behind her ears, I had the letter smoothed down next to the butter. My arm was dirty, foul liquid on my wrist. I asked her to sit down, and the look on her face when she really looked at me, when she read it . . . I think we both knew it was probably the end of us. We’d cling on for a while, but the flint was gone. If I’d still had it, I would have used it to burn that damn letter.

We’d stayed in each other’s orbit for another eighteen months, because we didn’t want to go and we didn’t want to stay. That’s what happens in a marriage, when one of you wants a child and one of you can’t give it to them.

Yes, that was my life’s third and final eventful breakfast. The one that has to do with sperm.

‘So it’s real?’ I asked. We both knew what I meant. Her and Michael.

She sighed. ‘It’s real. But I’d believe him even if it wasn’t. Not all of us get to see our father in a new light. That’s a privilege.’

I understood then that, through helping Michael understand Robert better, she was vicariously seeking closure about her own abusive father.

‘Come on,’ I begged. ‘You’re smarter than this.’

‘You always did say such nice things.’ She smiled grimly. ‘Have you opened the truck yet?’

I shook my head. ‘He gave me the keys. But then we followed you up here.’

‘He told me whatever’s in there should convince you.’

I wished people would stop telling me that whatever was in the truck was going to change my life. It would, as it turns out, in terms of both what I believed and the function of my right arm, but I still wished they’d stop telling me.

‘We’re getting nowhere,’ I said, deciding to defuse things. ‘Let’s try to find some common ground.’

‘You sound like Doctor Kim.’

‘We spent all that money on the counselling – who’d have thought it would come in handy.’ I forced a smile.

‘So, what is it then?’ She put on our former therapist’s languid monotone. ‘What unites us?’