I met Megan Emily Emerson when I was 31 and she was 3. She was one of the most delightful creatures I had ever met. We got along immensely, fantastically. We talked at length over the really important things in life, such as The Simpsons, boy germs and how to jump off a step ladder without making mum angry. She made me feel things I didn’t have words for when first explaining them to her mother, such things as joy, pride, humility, wonder. Those feelings were foreign to me.

The day she moved in with me she asked if she could call me Dad. The request knocked me down, and I should have thought about it some more, but there was really only one response for it. Yes.

Five years on the few attempts we’ve made to have her named changed have been in vain, so I’m changing mine. Meet Paul Emerson Teusner, a brand new man.