‘No, Dad, I’ve never been scared of you.’ She reached across the rug to squeeze his hand. ‘But I was a little girl and sex was part of a grown-up world and one I didn’t want to talk about, much less admit that I had been part of. I wasn’t scared of you, not ever, but I couldn’t face disappointing you. Somehow the thought of that was worse than the thought of you being angry. I didn’t want you to look at me differently. I didn’t want you to stop loving me.’

Her mum looked into her lap, her bottom lip shaking before fat tears turned her eyes bloodshot and she cried in a way that was rare for her. Bess looked away; it was hard for her to witness.

‘We have always loved you so much – nothing could change that,’ her mum felt the need to clarify.

‘I know, Mum. I know you have, always.’ Her love for her mum flared and she smiled, hating that she was putting her parents through this.

‘I think . . .’ Her mum reached for a tissue from her bag to wipe her eyes and dab her nose. ‘I think I would have been devastated, yes – I can’t pretend I wouldn’t have been.’ She briefly met Bess’s gaze. ‘But I would’ve got past that because you’re my daughter and you were my little girl, and the thought of you going through all that on your own . . .’ Her voice broke away.

‘It’s so easy to look back and think of all the things I could have done or should have done, and it’s impossible to do that without adding my grown-up experiences and my adult thoughts. But the truth is, I was absolutely petrified, and thought it was the end of the world. I thought I might die. A part of me did, I think.’ Bess remembered the endless hours lying on the bed in her childhood room, rubbing her stomach where her child had taken root and trying not to think of what lay ahead. Torn between relishing the feeling of being pregnant, the miracle of it, and battling the blanket of shame that threatened to suffocate her. She knew she had never felt so lonely or so alone.

‘It breaks my heart to think of it,’ her dad confessed, and her mum nodded her agreement, and there they sat, unified in heartbreak, ‘but a small part of me looks at the lovely woman you’ve become, the great kids you have in Jakey and Nats, and I feel proud that you came out the other side. It must have been the hardest thing in the whole wide world.’

Bess smiled at her lovely dad through her tears. It was.

‘I suppose this is why Mario has moved out?’ he asked plainly.