‘I have a confession to make,’ he says, his gaze so intense now that I feel compelled to stare down at the floor. ‘I invited you out to Oamaru with us partly because I thought it would help. There is something about this place – I felt it when I came here after my dad died, and I wanted you to feel it too.’

Whisky tears well up in my throat.

‘Did it work?’ he asks, and I manage to nod.

‘I thought it had, at least a bit. You always look so haunted usually, as if you carry the dead with you everywhere you go. Today you seemed more, I dunno, alive, I guess, as if you were living properly in the moment, rather than hovering on the outside looking in.’

‘Are you some sort of magician?’ I say, desperate to lighten the mood. I cannot believe how much of a measure he has of me, or how closely he has been paying attention.

‘Nah.’ Kit levers the bottle of whisky down, but I put a hand over the top of my glass.

‘Any more of that and I’ll end up sleeping out here.’

‘Wouldn’t be so bad.’ Kit stretches his long legs out and knits his hands together behind his head. I am curled up like a hedgehog on my beanbag now, chilly despite the musty old blanket I found in the bedroom wardrobe.

I am still unsure how pleased Anna would be about the idea of me meeting my birth mother, but I know without question that she would have adored Kit – and Tui, for that matter. All this time, I have felt traitorous to my adoptive mum, but perhaps I have been doing her memory a disservice by ever doubting her capacity for forgiveness, understanding and love. Because the truth is, Anna was full of love, and if she were here, she would urge me to follow my heart no matter what.

34

Bonnie