“She’s just . . . she was one of the women from the playgroup. The one who was the asshole at first.” Claire had kept Thea updated on the early stages of playgroup and about her growing closeness with Amara (“I think I’m a little jealous,” Thea had said at one point), but had told her nothing about the destruction of it all.

“Oh, right, I want to meet her,” Thea said, and started typing something on the phone.

“What are you doing?”

Thea just shrugged and, when Claire reached out to try to grab her phone back, said, “You’re not allowed to grab things from a pregnant woman.”

When Claire went ahead and grabbed the phone anyway, she looked down at the screen to a series of new texts.

I’m hanging out at Bethesda Terrace, Thea had written. Come on by.

On our way, Amara had written back.

“Are you kidding me?” Claire asked Thea.

“What’s the big deal?” Thea asked. “I thought you loved her. It’s nice that you made a friend, and I want to meet her so I know whether or not I approve.”

“You’re such a control freak. Let’s go,” Claire said, standing up, so Thea shrugged and rose quickly to her feet. Then she paused, steadying herself on the bench.

“Hold on,” she said. “I may have jinxed it.” She walked to the nearest park trash can and braced herself on the edge of it, taking a series of deep breaths.

“Are you doing this on purpose?” Claire asked, and Thea shot her a look of pure fire. “Shit. Do you need a ginger ale?” Thea swallowed and nodded, so Claire ran to a nearby cart, waited in the long line, and paid the ridiculous three dollars for a soda, cracking it open and holding it out to her cousin. Claire watched Thea sip the drink slowly and patted her on the back as her adrenaline pumped. She could just text Amara back and tell her not to come after all, but curiosity was unfurling inside of her.

A few minutes later, the women appeared over the top of the hill, pushing their strollers, Whitney unexpectedly at Amara’s side. An invisible fist squeezed Claire’s heart in her chest, one quick, sharp pulse—had something bad happened? Or had she done something bad that she hadn’t even realized, and that was why these two women who by all rights should never have spoken to each other again were bearing down on her now, a hesitant team, here to accuse her of . . . what? Telling on them? But she’d kept her word about that, at least. She hadn’t even told Thea. (Oh, no, Claire thought with a jolt. Thea would soon be a New York City mom in a pretty high-income bracket too, thanks to her job at a fancy law firm. Would TrueMommy target her? Thea would never fall for it, but then again, Claire wouldn’t have expected Amara to fall for it either.)

It didn’t seem like Whitney and Amara had come to yell at her, though. They scanned the crowd with a tentative air, looking a little softer, a little sloppier, their faces also glistening in the August heat. They could go fuck themselves, Claire thought while simultaneously yearning to run up and throw her arms around them both and their children too.

“I’ll be right back,” Claire said to Thea, and walked ten feet forward to meet them.

“Claire,” Whitney said while Amara just hit her with that thrilling, piercing look of hers.

“What’s going on?” Claire asked, her arms folded across her chest.

“We . . . ,” Whitney said.

“We fucked up,” Amara said. “Massively. In terms of how we treated you.”

“And we wanted to say that we’re sorry,” Whitney said.

“What, are apology cleanses the newest trend?” Claire asked, identifying something strange and new within herself. For the first time, she felt herself to be an equal with these women. She’d viewed herself as their subordinate plenty of times, but at other moments, she’d actually thought of herself as superior. They’d saddled themselves down with children, giving up their jobs, not seeming to have a passion beyond what they’d brought forth out of their own bodies, and then on top of that, they’d gotten accidentally hooked on drugs, leaving her to mother them. But as Whitney and Amara stood in front of her now, asking for her forgiveness, these glorious, screwed-up, monstrous angels whom she had feared and hated and loved and disdained and worshipped seemed suddenly to be no inherently better than she was, but also no inherently worse. They were just human, through and through, and she was too.

“Is there any way we can make it up to you?” Whitney asked, and Claire knew exactly how they could.

“Tell Thea,” Claire said.

“Thea? Your cousin?” Whitney asked.

“Yeah,” Claire said, indicating Thea by the trash can, where she seemed to have decided that she didn’t need to vomit after all (had she been doing it all on purpose, then?), and was now Purell-ing her hands, not at all subtly trying to listen in. Thea waved. “She’s going to be a mother soon.”

“If you have impending motherhood tips, please,” Thea said, smiling and walking over, “I am all ears.”

“Thea,” Whitney said as they shook hands, “I’m Whitney. We e-mailed a long time ago about the playgroup.”

“We also took an art history class together at Harvard,” Thea said.

Whitney put her hands to her mouth. “I’m so sorry—”

Thea laughed. “Don’t worry about it.”

“She’s looked out for me, and I want to look out for her. I don’t want her getting taken advantage of,” Claire said, and Whitney and Amara understood.

“Wait. What?” Thea asked, her smile fading, that brisk get-shit-done expression coming back onto her face. “‘Getting taken advantage of’? How?”

Amara and Whitney exchanged a look and then, slowly, nodded at each other. “If anyone tries to get you to take these wellness vitamins called TrueMommy,” Amara said, “steer clear.”

“We heard that they’re a big, expensive scam,” Whitney said.

“TrueMommy,” Thea said. “Got it. Thanks.” She picked up her phone and began typing something.

“Thank you,” Claire said quietly to Whitney and Amara. “And for what it’s worth, I screwed up too.”

Amara looked at her, a helpless smile coming over her face, lost for words for the first time in Claire’s experience with her. “So . . . ,” she said, “how was your summer?” Claire laughed, and Amara joined in. Claire bent down to Charlie’s stroller and held up her hand for a high five, and he actually gave her one.

“It was . . . well, you know,” Claire said. “Gwen paid for me to go away on an artist’s retreat.”