The speeches were about growing up, girls becoming women, boys attaining their hopeless but basically lovable place as men. A joke was made by an uncle that depended on a sense that his niece, the bride, was silly, and ought to be reined in. The men stood by in grim assent. Dan had said that he could probably have enjoyed it with a bit of warning, and Lachlan told him, ‘Nobody has to be warned about a wedding.’

‘I am so sorry he said that,’ I said, though actually it was funny.

‘I’m sorry too,’ he blubbered, and held out his gooey hands.

‘No, Dan,’ I said. He stepped forward, his hands coming towards me. ‘You’re such a strong person. You know what always makes me feel better?’

‘A hug.’

‘A shower.’

When he came out of the shower, and was safely in his jamies, I made sure I was waiting right outside the bathroom door, feeling guilty for not having touched his hands before. I held out my arms in a supplicating position.

‘Ugh,’ he said, ‘the moment has passed.’

I let him push by me in the hall, but he stopped right beside me, smelling like some new bath gel, acrid and fruity. ‘Did you feed my plants while I was gone?’ he asked.

The accepted term was watering. ‘Yes, Dan,’ I lied, because what plant cannot live three days without its meal? Weren’t plant-loving people meant to be meditative and moderate? He had only wished to confuse and inconvenience me by asking in the first place, and now he sought a reason to reprimand me for something.

‘It’s not a huge drama if you didn’t,’ he said.

‘No, it was good practice,’ I said – staring him down, willing him to challenge me. ‘I’ve been thinking about getting into the plant space.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Cool,’ he said. ‘What did you even do today? Should we get out of the hallway?’

And I ‘didn’t like questions’. Ha! I liked questions so much that the only thing I liked more was getting two at once, because then I could avoid having to tell Dan a weird story about what I’d done with my day, a memory that already felt scummy. In the past, he would definitely have loved this stupid story and said ‘what were you doing going to Richmond, you freak’; but the exact thing that made the story interesting, Vivian, was also what made it compromising, and best kept to myself.

Late that night, when I was cleaning my teeth, a text from an unknown number: ‘hey’.

I froze. I had felt safe in the temperate latitudes of home, with Dan in his bedroom, watching Australian Survivor on catch-up, and me here in the bathroom, having failed to work out where he’d hidden that special new body wash and instead using the dull dregs of a classic bar of soap.

‘nice to see you today’ the messenger added.