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my head. ‘Do I even know them?’
    ‘I guess your parents’ role in all of this must be the hardest part to digest,’ Ted murmured. ‘The thing is . . . your parents . . . well . . .’
    ‘I know,’ I said grimly. He seemed uncharacteristically stuck for words but I didn’t need him to finish the sentence. I assumed that he was going to refer to how close I was to them, and how invested they were in my life. He’d eventually grown accustomed to us over the years, but in the early days of our friendship, he’d remarked often with suspicion and confusion at how fond I was of my parents. In turn, I’d always thought his family was the strange one, with their polite distance, and the convoluted web of ex-spouses and step-siblings and half-siblings that formed their structure. ‘My parents are just wonderful .’
    Ted cleared his throat, and shifted just a little. I frowned.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Bean, your parents can be wonderful . . . but even so . . . I really feel like sometimes you look at your family through rose coloured glasses. This is a really, truly shitty thing they’ve done to you . . . and yes it’s come out of nowhere, but then again . . . I totally get that they would be capable of keeping a secret like this.’
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    ‘I just mean . . . honey . . . they can be manipulative.’
    ‘Ted!’
    ‘Remember when we bought the house?’
    ‘They were delighted for us!’
    ‘They were delighted for us. The day we exchanged contracts, we went out for dinner and your Dad popped open the bubbles just as he always does and we talked with them for hours about our plans for the house, and how we’d rent this granny flat out for a bit of extra income. Remember?’ I nodded, but I was on guard.
    ‘So?’
    ‘So the very next day, you went shopping for décor with Megan, and when you came home, you were adamant that it would be foolish for us to move into the big house and rent the flat.’
    ‘B-but it didn’t make sense. There’s only two of us, and the house is huge.’
    ‘It was huge when we inspected it, it was huge when we bought it, and it was huge when we told your parents we’d gone ahead with the sale . . . and not once did you question the sense of that until they did. It’s a large, luxurious house. We went to Dubai and I worked ninety hour weeks for two years so that we could save up enough to buy that house and set ourselves up. What didn’t make sense was for us to buy the house, and then install some other family in it just to maximise our tax deductions. But that’s what Graeme thought was most sensible, and so that’s what Megan thought was most sensible, and eventually that’s what you thought was most sensible. And believe me, Sabina, when your parents convince you of something, you are loyal to that idea almost beyond rationality. Look at our situation now – crammed in here like sardines, and now we’re going to have to figure out how to break the lease and get the tenants out of the house before the baby comes.’
    ‘But you agreed to move in here too,’ I whispered, stung.
    ‘Because . . .’ Ted sighed and entwined my hand on the table with his. ‘Because one of the things I love most about you is your loyalty, and your optimism, and even those damned rose coloured glasses. I’m assuming that you use them on me too, given that you put up with me.’ I smiled weakly, but there were tears in my eyes, because if there was one thing I was still sure of it was that I didn’t need rose coloured glasses for my husband. He was genuinely amazing. ‘I did try to talk you out of it, but it was obvious to me that pleasing your Dad meant a lot to you, and eventually I figured I would just go along with it for a year or two to make you happy. But it was never what we wanted. And it wasn’t just the house, it was you going to uni, and—’
    ‘I wanted to go to uni, Ted.’
    ‘Yes, you did. But you didn’t want to study teaching, did you? You wanted to