And Julian said: “It’s a surprise.”

And I said: “Oh, that’s nice.”

That is the conversation.

That is the entire conversation.

Nine words from me, three from him, four from me, and then a Tupperware lid.

If you take nothing else from any of this, take the fact that a thirty-nine-year-old woman with a mortgage and a decent job heard the word surprise in connection with a piece of medical equipment for a paralysed child and thought how lovely instead of wait.

Because there is a version of that question with one more clause in it.