‘Here you are.’ Bonnie pushes the papers into my hands. ‘I hope you can read my handwriting – it’s bloody dreadful.’

‘Something else I get from you,’ I say lightly, and register relief in her eyes.

David is still in the office where Bonnie and I left him, reading a battered Penguin paperback and eating a chocolate biscuit that he must have unearthed from the tin behind the desk. Leaping immediately to his feet, he asks if I am OK, which of course I’m not. My emotions are tied into even more knots than my ratty nest of half-dry hair.

Bonnie, who is still maintaining a respectful distance, offers to drive the two of us back into Queenstown, but David insists that she call us a taxi instead, pointing out that Bonnie must also be tired after such a long flight, and that the best thing all of us can do is get some rest.

I can tell that my adoptive dad is nervous, because he prattles on about all manner of nonsense throughout the entire journey back, starting in on the driver when he fails to elicit more than a murmur from me. I listen with only half an ear as they discuss the local sights, and David points out of the window as the mighty Lake Wakatipu comes into view.

I have been in New Zealand for weeks now, but that is still not enough time to feel blasé about its beauty. The far-flung mountains still enthral me, just as the lakes and verdant hillsides draw me in. The air flooding in through the open car windows is as clean and rejuvenating as it was on that first day, while the sun still beats down as adamantly. I am so far from home, yet home is where I am. The thought is enough to make me smile in spite of it all and, closing my eyes, I whisper a thank you to whatever it was that brought me here.

I think of Kit in his too-tight T-shirt, and the image is so substantial that I can almost smell the earthy scent of him. He has become as much a home to me as New Zealand, and Tui, and even the horses – all of them have played their part in piecing me back together again. I was broken when I arrived, but now I feel more whole than I ever have before – even without Anna. Losing her left me with a wound that I feared would never heal, but now I see why it has been gaping open for so long. Because I allowed myself to fill it with bitterness, fear and self-loathing, when what I should have tried to do was knit it back together with love.