‘The nastiest,’ Sumi confirmed. ‘You must have seen her at the bar, she’s always there, haunting the place. Blonde? Pretty? Very tall. Two red horns poking out of her forehead and a forked tail sticking out her arse. Cheated on him with one of their friends and then refused to sell him the business. It’s so messy.’

‘Poor John,’ I said slowly, my heart lurching at the thought of how hard that must have been for him.

‘Not that it matters to you.’ Sumi leaned back in her chair, a calm coming over her face.

‘It doesn’t?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘Because you’ve got Patrick.’

‘Right, yes,’ I agreed. ‘Patrick.’

‘I don’t get it,’ Sumi said, watching me shovel my fro-yo. It really was very good, even if it wasn’t wine. ‘All you’ve ever wanted was Patrick Parker. And now you’ve got him, you don’t want him? Come on, Ros, you’re not that kind of girl. What’s going on?’

‘I just want things to feel easy again,’ I replied, sure of my answer for the first time in what felt like forever. ‘I’m tired of being tired. And stressed and on edge. I want to wake up in the morning and have all the answers. That’s all I want, for life to be easy.’

‘Well, I can’t help you there,’ Sumi said sadly, sticking her spoon into my dessert. ‘I’m a brown lesbian who’s about to use a sperm donor to become a single mother. I don’t know if I’ve ever known what easy feels like.’

‘You know I love you,’ I told her, pushing my yoghurt away. ‘And I want you to know I’m here for you for all of it, start to finish. Except not the literal start or the literal finish because I don’t want to look at your vagina. But everything else, I’m one hundred percent yours.’

‘The further you stay from my vag, the happier I’ll be,’ she said with glistening eyes. ‘Look at us making emotional breakthroughs over frozen yoghurt. Lucy would be so proud of us. And to think, I almost went vegan.’

I looked at her face, a face I knew as well as my own, and found myself smiling. It was so strange to see my Sumi without a smirk or a grin. Something had changed in her but it suited her.

‘You’ve got to talk to Patrick,’ she said.

‘I know,’ I said with a sigh. ‘He’s coming to the podcast recording on Friday and to Mum and Dad’s ceremony. I need to figure this out.’

‘Who knows?’ she said, waving her spoon around in the air. ‘Maybe I’ve been wrong about him all this time and he’ll be wonderful. Maybe he’ll be able to help you.’