I catch him up. Not only has he survived, he looks well. It’s more than his clear skin and the heft of his chest under a show-off triathlon T-shirt. There is a certainty about him that I envy far more than his looks.

‘What is this?’ I hold up the card.

‘A birthday card, that’s all. It’s today, right?’

My fingers burn where they’re in contact with the envelope. It’s heavier than a card should be and there is something about Joel’s eyes as they dart from my face towards my hands and back again that makes me feel like it contains a threat.

I could open it now in front of him. Or take it home and give it to Kerry at the end of her shift, watch her as she reads, ask her to show me whatever he’s written.

‘Look inside, if you don’t believe me,’ he says.

It’s not sealed. I can read it and put it back, and Kerry won’t know. But he’ll know and that would give him power over our relationship.

Except he’s always had power, hasn’t he? Since millennium night, Joel has come between Kerry and me.

And then there was Marilyn’s wedding. But that was just a drunken kiss, before Kerry and I were even engaged. Wasn’t it? My head tells me she wouldn’t cheat, but my heart . . .

What do hearts know? Nothing. The brain is the processing organ, and my brain can overcome this disproportionate response to such a trivial event. I take three deep breaths. Yes, they kissed, years ago. But it can’t have meant anything, or she’d never have chosen me. Despite all the ways I let her down, she always came back.

‘Nice of you to remember, after so long.’

‘Oh, you don’t tend to forget that sort of thing. You both OK? And your mum?’

‘Mum’s fine. I’m almost at the end of med school but Kerry will be next. It was always the plan, I don’t know if you recall, that we’d both get to be doctors? Well, it’s finally happening.’ I’m blathering now. ‘How about you?’

He shrugs. ‘All right. Not a doctor or anything, obviously, but I’m taking a course to become a personal trainer.’

‘Ah, that explains the muscles. And the triathlon thing.’ I gesture at his T-shirt.

‘She told you?’ His voice is quiet.

I stare at him. ‘Told me what?’

Everything freezes: Joel, under the streetlamp, me in my stupid kitchen apron. Ridiculously, it makes me think of the moments before a duel. Are we fighting for Kerry?

He shrugs. ‘I bumped into her in town a while back, told her about my course. I thought she might have mentioned it. She was pleased, considering how I could have ended up. A vegetable. Worse.’ It’s like he’s deliberately putting himself down now.