Hayley sighs forlornly, and I give up on locating a whisk, fetching a fork from the draining board instead.

‘OK, have it your way,’ she says. ‘But you can’t blame a girl for hoping – a nice holiday romance might have cheered you up a bit.’

Now it’s my turn to sigh.

‘For the last time, you earthworm brain, I did not come to New Zealand to find a man – I came here to find my real mother.’

‘I know.’ Hayley’s voice is smaller now, her tone more contrite. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘So, what do you think I should do?’ I ask, cursing as the toast pops up. I haven’t even ignited the gas under the egg pan yet.

‘Hmm,’ Hayley begins, and I hear her tapping her fingers on something as I hunt in vain for a reheat button on the toaster. ‘That depends. How are you feeling about your mother now? You know, now that you’re there, and you’ve seen where she lives?’

‘Well, I guess if she’s horsey then she can’t be all bad,’ I allow. ‘And Tui is an absolute sweetheart, so I have to give Bonnie some credit for raising her. But I still feel like I know hardly anything about what she’s like as a person, you know? And there are no photos of her anywhere at the yard – not that I saw, anyway. She’s still faceless to me.’

Hayley makes sympathetic noises while I pour the beaten eggs into a pan and pick up a wooden spoon and scramble them. It’s not going to be the best breakfast I have ever made, given that I forgot to buy butter, salt or pepper.

‘It must have taken serious guts to just walk on in there,’ Hayley allows. ‘But you did it – you faced your biggest fear on the very first day.’

What I haven’t yet admitted to Hayley is how strange it felt to be so close to horses again. I stay away from the stables at home because I can’t bear to be around so many reminders, not just of my life before the accident, but of Anna, too, and my poor darling Suki. I thought it would be the same at Koru Stables, that those familiar smells, sights and sounds would invoke that terrible, gasping grief again – but they hadn’t. Or perhaps I hadn’t let them. I had kept my eyes averted and my hands firmly to myself.

‘I suppose I might be a bit braver than I thought I was,’ I agree. ‘But I have to admit, the whole thing felt like one long, extended moment of madness.’

‘Not madness,’ Hayley tempers lightly. ‘Courage.’