He said this without a shred of amusement. I made noncommittal noises and cracked the top on a bottle of wine.

Connor would be in the FMT centre for half a day. His procedure time clashed with the time Samuel needed to be picked up.

That afternoon I looked around the Blossomings carpark, but Deidre and her hefty shoes were nowhere to be seen.

Samuel came out, sluggish and wet-lipped as ever. He was swinging his book bag.

‘Good day?’ I said.

He nodded. He told me he was a wizard and also a dinosaur. I told him that would present certain logistical difficulties.

We drove into traffic. It was drizzly, humid; I could feel my hair frizzing at my temples and smoothed it to no avail.

I cleared my throat and glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘How’s Luna?’ I said.

‘Good.’

‘Is she a wizard too?’

‘No.’

‘A dinosaur?’

‘She’s a fairy.’

I nearly snorted at this.

‘Has she hit you again?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

A sullen nod, exaggerated, which gave him a momentary double chin. I could see how much he resembled Connor.

‘You can tell me if she did. You don’t have to lie. I won’t be mad.’

‘I like Luna,’ he said. Then he added, matter-of-factly, ‘I’m going to marry her.’

Perhaps some mothers would have laughed, or found this adorable; perhaps that’s what Samuel was expecting. I doubt he could have understood the rage his remark fired in me. All at once I was picturing Luna in a wedding photo on my wall, Luna pushing my redheaded, potato-faced grandchild on a creaking swing set, Luna picking over my jewellery as I lay on my deathbed. Luna, breasts wobbling in their training bra, jamming her huge feet into all my beautiful shoes.

The transplant didn’t work. Or rather, it worked briefly, for a couple of weeks, and then Connor got a little overconfident. He’d begun cautiously, eating a piece of white bread, a slice of cheese, eating – to Samuel’s horror – a banana. But this moderation didn’t last long. Soon Connor was drinking craft beer, eating tubs of choc-chip ice cream, joining me in my glasses of wine and bloody steaks.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked one night. ‘Are you sure?’

He had a forkful of buttery mashed potato.

‘Never better,’ he said. He pronounced the treatment a miracle. In his most evangelical moments he proposed writing a book about his experience with FMT in order to raise awareness and diminish stigma. I encouraged him in this, or at least I didn’t discourage him. Not because I thought the poop-awareness memoir would ever eventuate, but because he was better with a little iron in his blood, happier, more active. One night he even managed a hopeful erection, which he prodded – its tip oddly cool – into my buttock. It was too fleeting to seize, but still: it gave us hope.