MadFather raises his glass to toast. I lift up my gluten free orange squash.

He tilts his head at my glass. "Better than last year?"

I consider it. There is so much I cannot have, and cannot do. Sometimes the future stretches out before me in an endless run of reading labels and talking slowly to waiters and never having cake.

Last year, although I had enough energy, I spent the whole day on the sofa unable to eat because I felt so nauseous.

Sometimes, though, no matter how much perspective I have that it is better not to eat wheat than to be bedirdden, I simple wish those weren't my choices.

I clear my head.

"Yes," I say. "Even if I sometimes lack energy, I feel good."

"Actually, you wouldn't know you were sick, now," he says.

I think back to the past few days. An endless run of shopping and cooking and laughing.

And it's true. I clink my glass with his.