Dad’s face was out of my eyeline. But from Mum’s expression I guessed there was a quizzical look being thrown to her. ‘Edi,’ he spoke over me, ‘I’m a bit lost, love. You’re saying you can’t imagine being with anyone else, but you’re worried that, in getting married so young, what happens if you meet someone in the future?’ He was making it sound ridiculous – which it was in many ways. But I nodded. ‘Edi, you can meet someone else at any age, regardless of how long you’ve been married, or how old you were when you got married. Sometimes people just meet along the way and fall together, no matter how they feel about their spouses. Your age, your experiences – I don’t know they’ve got anything to do with that.’

I sucked in a big mouthful of air to rush through the next question. ‘Mum,’ I knew I could ask her easier than him, ‘was there anyone else, before Dad?’

She looked at Dad, then back at me, before she shrugged and said, ‘Yes.’

‘But there wasn’t for me.’

I pulled away to stare hard at him. ‘Serious?’

He laughed. ‘Seriously, yes.’

‘Do you feel that you’ve missed out?’

And he laughed again. ‘No, love. I don’t. Your mother worries about that more than I do. Not that she’s missed out, I don’t mean that, but that I might have done. But I’ve had a fulfilling relationship with someone who loves me and whom I love.’ He kept his arm around me but reached across to touch the inside of Mum’s forearm; there was something unexpectedly intimate in it. ‘Not many people are lucky enough to say that, especially not these days. Oh, bugger.’ He snapped out of his stupor. ‘That was insensitive, Edi, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’ I leaned into him. ‘It’s nice for a girl to hear her parents love each other.’

‘And have good sex,’ Mum added. She winked at Dad then apologised to me. It didn’t sound sincere, but at least it made me smile. ‘But it sounds to me like you’re worried you’re missing out on some big bad world out there, Edi, is that about right?’

No, I don’t think that; he does. ‘Yes, yes, I suppose that’s what I think.’ It occurred to me that they’d judge me less than they’d judge Rowan, though, so I took the hit. ‘I worry we’re not giving ourselves the chance to explore things properly, you know, ourselves, our likes, our – I don’t really know what else. Just … things. I worry for Rowan, too, that he might want to be with other women and end up feeling trapped. You hear about it all the time, don’t you? Especially, like Dad said, our generation and all.’