Some of them had gotten halfway through drying their hair in the morning. Some had never even started at all, their normally shiny hair frizzing and waving. Same with makeup—Claire noticed all sorts of new wrinkles and dark spots that she’d never seen before. They all wore either workout clothes or sweatpants, except Vicki, who was in a cottony sundress, and Whitney, who had clearly tried to keep up her put-together look, wearing white cigarette pants and a button-down cerulean blouse. She’d forgotten to fasten a couple of the buttons, though, or they’d come undone and she hadn’t noticed.

And all around them were the babies, seeming to sense that something had gone horribly wrong, wailing and sniffling and toddling around, leaving destruction in their wake. Little Lexington pulled herself up on the coffee table and started grabbing at a silver vase with a succulent inside. Claire ran and scooped her up before it all crashed to the ground, returning her to Meredith, who gave her a groggy nod of thanks before plopping Lexington into a nearby jumper, where she couldn’t move around.

“Wait. Why is Claire here?” Ellie said, mascara puddling on her cheeks and Oreo dust in between her teeth. “Ugh, don’t look at me, Claire! I’m a bloated, ugly monster.”

“I invited her. She’s the one who figured the whole thing out,” Amara said. “She’s part of it now. And it’s good to have someone here who’s actually thinking straight as we try to figure out what the fuck to do about this.”

“How did you know, Claire?” Gwen asked. Her voice caught, and she buried her face in her hands. “God, I should have known. I feel like such a fool.”

“You’re not a fool,” Claire said, a little glow of pride rising up in her alongside the tenderness she felt for them all. She put her hand on Gwen’s shoulder. She had saved them. If not for her, who knows how long they’d have carried on, oblivious? “I tried one of Amara’s, and I guess because I wasn’t weaned onto it slowly, it was pretty clear that something was wrong. Are you guys okay?”

“Obviously not!” Ellie snapped.

“Ellie,” Amara said, glaring at her before turning to Claire. “But no. Imagine the worst hangover of your life, coupled with the realization that you’ve actually been drunk for months and ruining everything in your life accordingly.”

“Screw this. I’m taking one,” Ellie said. She lunged over toward her purse and began to root around for the TrueMommy container inside.

“Ellie, no!” Meredith said, and pulled her hand away from the purse. Ellie snatched her hand back and went back to rooting around until, unexpectedly and out of nowhere, Meredith full-body-tackled her, dragging her down to the ground.

“Stop it!” Ellie shouted as Meredith held her down. “What is wrong with you? Like Claire said—we were weaned on slowly, so I’m going to wean myself off slowly!” She managed to shove Meredith off for a second and made her way back to her purse, pulling out the TrueMommy. “My little brother was on Adderall when we were teenagers. That’s what you’re supposed to do!”

“So, what?” Meredith grabbed that beautiful suede box out of Ellie’s hand and held it out of reach as Ellie clawed at her. “How are you planning on doing it slowly? Are you going to pay them for more pills?” Ellie elbowed her in the stomach. “Ow! I’m doing this because I love you.”

“Guys!” Amara said, trying to get in between them. “Calm down. Let’s all stop acting like insane people and talk this out for a minute.” Ellie’s flailing arm whacked Amara across the face, and she let out a cry of pain. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Gwen ran over and hovered, her arms flapping useless at her sides like she was a baby bird attempting her first flight out of the nest. “Everyone,” she said ineffectually, “we need to sit and have a reasonable conversation. We need to figure out what to do.”

“Please, stop,” Whitney said from the couch in a low voice. “Please, please, stop.” It was the first time she’d spoken in all that mess. Claire, who was in the midst of trying to corral and calm all the fussing babies, looked over at Whitney in surprise, realizing how often, in previous playgroups, Whitney had defused situations with her light, teasing comments, how easily and skillfully she acted as the peacemaker, and how quickly things could escalate when she didn’t play her part.

Over by the window, Vicki’s son began to cry from all the commotion. Vicki pulled down the collar of her dress to expose her breast and latched him onto it.

“Wait, Vicki,” Claire said, approaching her tentatively, remembering what she’d read online the night before when looking up amphetamines and side effects. “I don’t know if you should be breastfeeding if it’s still in your system.”

Vicki looked up with her languid eyes, her fluttery light brown lashes. “But I feel fine,” she said.

Claire had never heard Vicki’s voice before. It was surprisingly deep and clarion, ringing like a bell at dinnertime. At her unexpected words, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at her.

She did look fine. Just like normal, dreamy, sunflower Vicki always looked as she floated through life. No makeup, but then, Claire had never actually noticed Vicki wearing makeup at all.

“Vicki,” Amara said, “did you take your TrueMommy this morning?”

“No,” Vicki said.

“Did you take your TrueMommy ever?” Amara asked.

“Hmm, about half the time,” Vicki said. “When I thought of it. I think I would’ve known if there was speed in mine. I’ve done every drug in the world.”

As the other women looked at one another in shock, a slow siren of a wail rose up through Ellie’s body. “Are you kidding me?” she yelled, collapsing onto a couch. “Vicki gets to be totally okay? What kind of random monsters run TrueMommy? Are we being tortured by Satan or something? Is this a psychological experiment designed to break us? Good job, Satan. I’m breaking!” As Ellie began to cry, Meredith sat down next to her and stroked her hair.

“Have you guys been to the website?” Claire asked. “It just says ‘Under Construction,’ and then lists an e-mail address. And I couldn’t find anything else about it on the Internet.”

“I know,” Amara said. “I looked last night. I couldn’t find anything about a Dr. Lauren Clark from MIT either.”

“What?” Gwen asked. “But when we started taking it, I looked it up—I did research. I always do research! They had a website then with all sorts of testimonials and this nice, clean design. I haven’t googled it since February, though, so maybe it was all fake and they just put it up when they were trying to convince us to buy in?”

“We’ve got to destroy TrueMommy,” Amara said. “I want those motherfuckers to wish they’d never been born.”