“Hold on now. Leave some for the grown-ups,” her father said, and whisked the glass out of her reach. Encouraged by Gwen’s example, Teddy took a sip and gave a similar shudder. Gwen put her arm around him. (Once, she’d overheard her father, five drinks deep, tell her mother that Teddy reminded him of Alice. “No,” her mother had said. “No, it’s just a phase. He’ll grow out of it.” It wasn’t that Gwen tried to eavesdrop. She knew it was wrong, and she wanted to be a good girl. But at the Connecticut house, the grown-ups always got extra-chatty at a certain point in the night, and it was hard not to listen.)

“Our special secret, remember?” their father said, putting a finger to his lips and winking. His woodsy scent, his fresh-combed hair, that contagious smile—how she loved him, the P. T. Barnum of her childhood. Gwen was flying, and then she and Teddy went tumbling, chasing, out through the hallway and onto the lawn, where her grandparents and their guests sipped at fizzy drinks in the golden late-afternoon light, where nothing bad had ever happened or could ever happen. They sprinted past stupid weasel Peter, and Gwen knew Teddy wouldn’t punch him, so she did it herself, slamming her small fist against his cheekbone, watching his mouth open in surprise and pain, and then running on, faster, until she collided with an older man with a kindly, handsome face, one of her grandfather’s friends who picked her up when she fell backward on the grass (how green it smelled, how it prickled the backs of her legs).

“Are you all right, little lady?” he’d asked, and she’d nodded before running off again. Later, her grandfather had taken her by the shoulders, the veins standing up in his hands, and said, “That man used to be the president of the United States, Gwen girl. Go apologize like a nice little lady.”

Her whole childhood seemed to take place in that golden afternoon light, where everything felt safe and warm, where she never doubted for a moment that her mother and father loved her, where her mother made her elaborate breakfasts in the morning and taught her piano in the afternoons (never yelling, always encouraging) and read her L. M. Montgomery books before bed, where they all took trips to Istanbul and Paris, and sunned at Caribbean resorts, and her parents drank and laughed and drank some more.

And she wanted nothing more than to give her own children a golden childhood too, where she cooked breakfast and taught piano and read them Anne of Green Gables, where they could gather with their grandparents on the lawn and know that they were loved.

Twenty years later, at the Connecticut house, her father poured himself a few drinks. (Was it three or four or five? She wanted to imagine him drinking each one, to sit with him in her mind, as if maybe she could pull his hand away and change things somehow.) She assumed her mother drank too, although perhaps not, given that she’d been trying to cut back her caloric intake even further, telling Gwen about a new fad diet each time they spoke on the phone. (Her obsession was sad. Gwen never wanted to be one of those women.) It was mid-January, a couple of days after a snowfall, and some of the back roads still hadn’t been entirely plowed. Gwen’s mother and father got into their car and headed toward a friend’s house. Gwen’s father always drove, just like he always managed the investments and always hired the handymen.

Five miles from their destination, the car hit a patch of black ice, spun out of control, and careened into a tree. Gwen’s father died on impact. Gwen’s mother died a couple of hours later in the hospital while Gwen was at a party, her phone on silent in her purse.

Could one really consider oneself an orphan at age twenty-six? Gwen didn’t think so, and yet she hurt as if some childhood innocence had been yanked away. Her mother would never help her plan her wedding. Her father would never walk her down the aisle. She was alone in the world except for Teddy, and Teddy was not doing well.

It turned out, when she went through the family’s finances with a lawyer, that they were less solid than she’d always thought, a result of some bad investments on her father’s part, a frittering away of resources that they’d all assumed were endless. She arranged to sell the Connecticut house. The ghost of Aunt Alice would have to bring midnight cookies to some other children, not Gwen’s.

A few months later, wounded, aching, she met Christopher at a wedding of a mutual friend. He laughed easily and danced with all the grandmothers. He reminded her of her father: that same charm, that same sweetness, that same lust for what the world had to offer. There was one difference, though—he didn’t drink. She didn’t realize at the time that he might have other vices. She only saw the golden life she could have with him. She reached out and took it.

Chapter 10

The great thing about having sex with strangers, Claire thought drunkenly as a guy she’d met earlier that night bent her over the cheap Ikea desk in her apartment, bills and junk mail falling to the floor around them, was that it was an excellent ego boost.

The bad thing about having sex with strangers, Claire thought the next day as she stared down at the toilet bowl in Whitney’s bathroom, where a clear deflated balloon floated in the yellow, was that you had to deal with the consequences all by yourself.

She flushed the toilet, holding the handle down an extra few seconds, and splashed water on her face, hoping to disguise the red in her eyes. What a dumb ass she was. She’d been ten minutes late today, because she was so hungover, and she’d had to get a random guy out of her apartment even though he seemed insistent on making her an omelet, as if knowing how to cook eggs made him a feminist hero. She had choked out some gravelly songs for the babies, hoping that none of the mothers had noticed the rattle in her voice, waiting for the moment she could head home and go back to sleep. And now this disaster. She hadn’t realized it had come off last night. She hated that something could live inside her body for twelve hours without her knowledge. She hated that more strange things were living inside her body still.

Amara was in the hallway waiting for the bathroom, using the moments of privacy to swipe at some game on her phone, when Claire came out of it.

“Sorry. Here,” Claire said, holding open the door, but her voice caught on the last word.

Amara looked up, her eyebrows furrowing. “What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing.” Claire shook her head.

“All right,” Amara said, stepping forward, one foot into the bathroom, before turning back around. “What’s wrong?”

“I peed out a condom,” Claire said automatically, all in one breath. She put her hand to her mouth, her eyes beginning to smart again. “Shit. Forget I said that. I was kidding. Everything’s fine.”

Amara stared at her for a moment, then nodded once briskly. “I’ll be down in the lobby in ten minutes. Wait for me.”

“What?” Claire asked.

“Perhaps I’m incorrect, but from every impression I’ve ever gotten from you, I assume you don’t want to be a mother right now.”