Petra nods. ‘I met my wife six weeks after I got it tattooed on me. And she is a source I cite often, because she loves me and knows me and sees that I am good.’

‘Whoa,’ Evie says, and she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing.

‘So thank you,’ Petra says. ‘And thank you for listening. I’ll bet people tell you their stories all the time,’ she says. ‘I know many people must feel how I feel.’

Evie holds a hand to her heart, and then takes the hands of both women.

‘I really, really appreciate you coming over and saying hi,’ she says, her heart swelling. She doesn’t want to run away, or make a silly self-effacing joke. She believes she wrote something that meant something to these women, and she is going to be gracious enough to let them tell her. It’s only later, once they’ve hugged and said goodbye, that she appreciates that they didn’t ask for a photo, or a social media tag, or anything like that. They just wanted to chat, and that, to Evie, feels like magic. Cite your source, she repeats to herself.

And then it hits her.

She’s lucky her dad is still a piece of shit.

He’s such a piece of shit that he doesn’t get to be a source that Evie cites.

Just like Petra gets to disregard her mother’s feedback, because her mother doesn’t really know her, Evie doesn’t have to be held hostage to those words her father spat at her when she was still so young.

How sad, how unfair, that she has carried around his self-hate, his self-loathing, as her own, for all these years.

What he said, it wasn’t about her. How could it be? That was all him.

And it’s the craziest thing: Evie starts to cry. The relief of it all, of understanding that her dad can go screw himself, because he doesn’t get to bring her down too. He can destroy his own life as much as he wants. Evie doesn’t know him. And he doesn’t know her, and that is his loss.

This time when she pulls out her phone, she googles local tattoo parlours. Before she can question it, she follows the little blue dot, pushes through to the door, and asks the artist if he speaks English. He shakes his head.

‘Nein,’ he tells her.

‘Okay,’ she says, slowly. ‘Erm …’