When I’ve finished soaking, the beautician drains the water, dries my feet, and furrows her eyebrows as she inspects them. I suppose there’s a lot of work to be done. The last time someone took such an intimate interest in my toenails was Mum when she was poised over them with a clipper. It makes me miss her. We never did this together, never had the spare cash, and she deserved it more than most.

From the window, I see the main street of Anchorage, quiet, icy and white, shops packed with souvenirs. There are no tourists and a closed street stall advertises reindeer sausages. Beyond, snowy mountains rise and fall.

My grandmother is in the massage chair beside me and we’ve been chatting about life in West Creek. So far, I’ve told her about Mum, Melody (minus the cheating), Lucy and Oliver. I wonder if Lucy sent the message to Malcolm about seeing a movie. I take out my phone and ask her for an update while telling my grandmother all about Lucy’s cute-boy situation. Then I scroll through my photos and show her a video of Chirp, sitting in Lucy’s backyard under the big tree, just past the pens for the bird sanctuary, eating banana, pieces sticking to and falling from her beak. I’m laughing out loud, but my grandmother clearly doesn’t find her as entertaining. I show Miriam Lucy’s illustrations of birds done in fine felt-tip pen, and we agree she’s beyond talented. And I show her a thousand photos of Oliver—including the most recent dog-park escapade—and she agrees, it’s a no-brainer, he’s super cute and has skin that literally looks Photoshopped. In return, she shows me pictures of her fluffy Tzu named Peanut who loves smoked-salmon treats. He also wears a bow tie on occasion. And she tells me about her first love who she met at ski school in Switzerland. And did I know she and Mike lived in Italy for a year when Adam was a kid? She’s fluent in Italian, and Adam can even speak a little.

‘Adam hasn’t told me much about anything,’ I can’t help but say. I don’t mean to criticise him in front of her, even though she does it all the time.

‘Yes, he told me how he kept his job from you,’ she says.

I hadn’t wanted to bring up the hunting thing, not sure what and how much he’d told them, and wanting to make a good impression on her. But I’m glad she did. I’m sick of secrets.

‘Silly decision to start off your relationship like that, immature. But not surprising, really,’ she says. ‘In his often-hard-to-understand mind, he was probably trying to protect you.’

‘From what, his personality?’ That came across more harshly than I meant.

The beautician starts nipping my cuticles with tweezers.

‘Sorry, I mean—’ I try again.