Anyway, I didn’t want to talk about the American woman to Alice. Obviously. Especially not to Alice. I don’t especially want to talk about it with you, either. Or think about it. Or write about it. It just happened. Like everything else.

Elisabeth smoothed the white blanket next to Alice’s leg with the flat of her palm. Her face seemed to harden. She said, “Sorry, that doesn’t mean anything to me, either. Not a thing.”

Why did she sound angry? Alice felt as if she’d done something wrong but couldn’t work out what; she felt stupidly clumsy, like a child trying to grasp something big and important that the grown-ups weren’t telling her.

Elisabeth met Alice’s eyes and gave her a half-smile and looked away again quickly.

A woman carrying flowers came into the ward, peered hopefully at Alice and Elisabeth, blinked dismissively, and walked past their curtained-off cubicle to the next one. They heard a disembodied voice squeal, “I was just thinking about you!”

“I should have brought you flowers,” murmured Elisabeth.

Alice said suddenly, “You’re married!”

“Pardon?”

Alice picked up Elisabeth’s left hand. “You’ve got an engagement ring! It’s gorgeous. That’s exactly the sort of ring I would have got if we’d got to choose our own ring. Not that I don’t love Granny Love’s ring, of course.”

Elisabeth said dryly, “You hate and despise Granny Love’s ring, Alice.”

“Oh. Did I tell you that? I don’t remember telling you that.”

“Years ago, I think you might have had too much to drink, that’s why I don’t understand why . . . well, anyway.”

Alice said, “Well, are you going to keep me in suspense? Who did you marry? Was it that cute town planner?”

“Dean? No, I didn’t marry Dean, and I only went out with him for five minutes. Also, he died. In a scuba diving accident. Tragic. Anyway, I married Ben. You don’t remember Ben? He’s looking after your children at the moment.”

“Oh, that’s nice of him, good,” said Alice weakly, and felt sick again, because presumably a good mother would immediately have checked on who was looking after her children. The problem was that it still seemed preposterous that they existed. She pressed a hand to her flat stomach where there was no longer a baby and fought that feeling of vertigo. If she let herself think too much about this, she might start screaming and not be able to stop.

“Ben,” said Alice, focusing on Elisabeth. “So you married someone called Ben.” She remembered hearing that snuffly child say “Uncle Ben” on the phone. It was somehow worse when things clicked together, as if everything in the world made sense except for Alice.

She said, “It’s funny, I was thinking earlier that the only Ben I knew was this huge neon-sign designer I met once at Nick’s sister’s shop. I always remembered that guy because he was so big and slow and silent, it was like a giant grizzly bear had been turned into a man.”

Elisabeth burst out laughing, and the sound of her laugh (it was a fullthroated, generous laugh that always made you want to say the funny thing again) and the way she tipped back her head made her seem like her proper self again.

“I don’t get it.” Alice smiled, ready to get it.

“That’s the Ben I married. I met him at the opening of Dora’s shop. We’ve been married eight years.”

“Really?” Elisabeth married that huge grizzly neon-sign designer? She normally went for terribly witty, successful corporate types, who made Alice feel stupid. “But didn’t he have a beard?”

Surely Elisabeth wouldn’t have married someone with a beard. Elisabeth shook with laughter. “Yep, he’s still got it.”

“And does he still design neon signs?”

“Yes, beautiful ones. My favorite is the one for Rob’s Ribs and Rumps in Killara. It came in second in the annual Neon Design Awards last year.”

Alice looked at her sharply, but she seemed perfectly serious.

She said, “So he’s my brother-in-law. So I guess I . . . know him. I know him pretty well. Does Nick get on with him? Do we all go out together?”

Elisabeth paused and Alice couldn’t read the expression on her face. Then she said, “Years ago, before Ben and I were married, when Madison was a toddler and you were just pregnant with Tom, we got a house together at Jervis Bay one Easter. It was right on Hyams Beach, you know—whitest sand in the world—and the weather was perfect, and Madison was so cute, we were all just in love with her. We played stupid card games like Cheat and one night Nick and Ben got drunk and danced to eighties music. Ben never dances. That might have been the only time I’ve seen him dance. They were being so stupid! We were just rolling around laughing so much, we woke Madison up and she got out of bed and danced with them in her pj’s. Actually, that was a really special holiday. It makes me feel so nostalgic. I haven’t thought about it for ages.”

“I don’t remember a thing about it,” said Alice. It seemed so cruel that she couldn’t remember a wonderful holiday, as if some other Alice had got to live her life in her place.

Elisabeth’s tone changed abruptly. “It’s amazing you don’t remember Ben.” There was something almost aggressive in her voice and she was looking sharply at Alice as if daring her to say something. “You saw him just yesterday. He came over to help you with your car. You baked him his favorite banana muffins. You had quite a chat.”

“So,” said Alice nervously. “We have a car now?”

“Mmmm. Yes you do, Alice.”

“And I make banana muffins?”

Elisabeth smiled. “Low fat. High fiber. But surprisingly delicious.”

Alice’s mind jumped about feverishly, this way and that, until she felt dizzy, from those three strange children sitting in a row to banana muffins to a car (she didn’t like cars: she liked buses, the ferry; also, she wasn’t the best driver) to Elisabeth marrying a neon-sign designer called Ben.

She seized on a sudden hurtful thought. “Hey! You must have had a wedding without me!” Alice loved weddings. She would never forget a wedding.

Elisabeth said, “Alice, you were my matron of honor and Madison was flower girl. You had matching dresses the color of a Singapore orchid. You made a funny speech, and you and Nick made a spectacle of yourselves dancing to ‘Come On Eileen.’ You gave us a blender.”