By the end of the week, Millie’s request for full medical leave has been approved, and she won’t be back at work for another month. She’s heard from her co-workers, who inform her that before everyone left for the Christmas break, the lab was drowning without her. It got so bad, they said, that their boss wanted to hire an additional lab tech for benchwork.

Saturday is Christmas. We celebrate Millie’s rebounding health. I donate to the turtle sanctuary on her behalf, and she loves it. Millie gets me a simple golden chain with a wave symbol engraved on the clasp. ‘I don’t want you to forget what you’re capable of,’ she writes in loopy script on a note she leaves in the box.

Somewhere in the middle of watching reruns of reality TV, I tell Millie I fell for somebody. I don’t tell her it’s Hugh yet. But I do tell her that he lives in Australia, that I miss him, and that I really screwed it up, and I don’t know what to do.

‘Ohmygod,’ she starts talking so fast all her words run together. ‘Who? Does he know you were me? I mean does he know you are you? Is he cute? Did you hook up? I knew it!’ she cries, ending her barrage of questions on a triumphant note. ‘I told you that,’ she says, raising her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t I? I said you needed to get out of here. And now look – you met somebody!’

I roll my eyes at her. ‘And I told you I wasn’t ready. Now look . . . I met someone who lives literally as far away as possible.’

‘You said you didn’t want another Midwesterner,’ Millie teases. ‘Honestly,’ she says, scratching Murphy behind his ears, ‘I always thought you would end up with someone further from home anyways. I never thought you would be here forever.’

‘You didn’t?’ I’m incredulous. My whole life has felt like a narrative of: Of course, Andi will stay close to home. Was I the only one thinking that?

‘No,’ she says simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

‘Now tell me everything,’ she commands, but I’m saved by the bell because before I have to, our mom calls us down for dinner.

The antibiotics do the trick and Millie has no more hiccups on her road to recovery. We spend New Year’s together, all of us relieved that we haven’t had to go back to the hospital. I text Pippa, wishing her a happy holiday season, and she sends me back an adorable selfie of her and Andrew in what appears to be some kind of fake winter wonderland in the middle of London.