‘Someone told me Quinn was a name for luck and he’s definitely been lucky so far,’ Tara smiled. Her blonde hair looked blow-dried for the occasion, her face dewy and radiant. She didn’t look like someone who’d recently given birth. Connie looked down at her daughter.

‘I can’t believe she stole your name,’ Connie said softly. She felt a hot wall of tears building behind her eyes. Her milk was coming in and it was making her emotional; if she let the tears come they might never stop. She closed her eyes to quell the rising tide and whispered to the baby, ‘Just a minute too late, hey.’

New Year’s Day 2020

‘So hang on,’ Quinn said, holding up a finger to interrupt. ‘You’re called Minnie Cooper?’

Minnie and Quinn were sitting on the floor, the sun now streaming through the window. She leant back on her hands and stretched her neck from side to side.

‘Would you believe neither of my parents even made that connection for a good couple of weeks? I got a lot of “vroom vrooms” the whole way through school.’

‘Well, I’m sorry that you were named after a car,’ Quinn grinned, ‘but I don’t think that’s how my mother would tell the story.’

‘I’m sure she wouldn’t,’ Minnie said. ‘She’s not going to admit stealing someone else’s name.’

Quinn swivelled his body around to face her.

‘Can you believe we were born in the same hospital on the same day, minutes apart?’ said Quinn, his face animated. ‘What are the chances of that? And then meeting like this, on our birthday of all days. Don’t you think that’s weird?’

Minnie looked back at him, returning his gaze. She’d thought about this man a lot over the course of her life. She knew it was strange to resent someone she’d never met, someone she knew nothing about, but she did. The way her mother told the story, this was the boy who’d stolen her name and with it her good fortune. When bad things happened to Minnie, her mother would say, ‘You were born unlucky, girl.’ It was the refrain of Minnie’s childhood. Memories of missteps sprung to mind.

On her seventh birthday Minnie fell down an uncovered manhole in the street and broke her foot.

‘The workman swears he only turned his back for a few seconds,’ the paramedic said, as he tried to pull Minnie out.

‘Born unlucky this one,’ said Connie, leaning into the manhole. ‘This would never happen to a Quinn Cooper!’