“How is your, ah, memory today?” he’d asked her politely, while they drank their hot chocolates and ate the cakes on the back veranda.

“Oh, maybe a bit better,” she’d said. People liked to think you were making progress when it came to health matters.

Apparently Jasper was with “his mother.” She realized that Dominick must be a divorced dad. How strange it all was. Wouldn’t it be a lot less messy if everyone just stayed with the people they married in the first place?

That meant divorce was a shared interest. She’d had a moment of inspiration and said to him, “Have we ever talked about Nick—about why we separated?”

He gave her an odd sideways look. “Yes.”

Aha!

“Would you mind giving me a quick summary of what I told you?” She said this lightly, trying not to show how desperately she needed to know the answer.

“You don’t remember anything about why you and Nick split up?” he’d said slowly.

“No! I couldn’t believe it! It was a total shock to me.”

The words spilled out of her mouth before she realized that they might be upsetting to someone who was hoping to start a relationship with her.

He’d scratched hard at his nose. “Well. Obviously I don’t know every detail, but, ah, it seemed that he—Nick—was pretty much involved with his job. He was away a lot and he worked long hours, and so I guess, I think you said, you just drifted apart. That’s the way it happened. And, ummm, I guess, maybe some sexual issues. You mentioned . . .” He coughed loudly and stopped talking.

Sex? She’d talked to this man about sex? It was an unforgivable betrayal of Nick. And besides which, what issues could there have been relating to sex? They had a glorious, funny, tender, highly satisfying sex life.

It was so embarrassing to hear the word “sex” coming out of Dominick’s mouth. He was too nice. Too grown-up and proper. Even now, when Alice was alone thinking about it, she felt her face become warm.

Dominick had seemed embarrassed, too. He’d cleared his throat so many times, Alice had offered him a glass of water, and then he’d left soon after, telling her to take care of herself. At the front door he’d suddenly wrapped his arms around her in a quick, warm hug. He’d said in her ear, “I care a lot about you,” and then he was gone.

So that hadn’t helped much at all. “Drifting apart because of Nick’s long hours.” That was such a cliché. The sort of thing that broke up other marriages. If Nick had to work long hours, they would have just made up for it in the hours they did have.

She looked at her wineglass and saw that the level had gone down considerably. What if her lips and teeth were stained purple and she opened the door to Nick and the children looking like a vampire? She rushed to the mirror in the hallway and checked her reflection. Her lips were fine. Her eyes just looked a bit wild and crazed, and she still looked extremely old.

As she walked back into the kitchen, she stopped by the Green Room, except it wasn’t green anymore. It was a small room off the hallway that had originally been painted a bright lime green. Now the walls were painted a tasteful mushroom. Alice leaned against the doorway and found that she missed the green. It had made people laugh and shield their eyes whenever they saw it. Of course, it had to go—but still. The house was literally perfect now. Instead of being thrilling, that suddenly seemed depressing.

The Green Room had been turned into a study, which had always been their plan. There was a computer on a desk and bookshelves lined the walls. She walked in and sat down at the computer. Immediately, without thinking, she leaned down and pushed a round silver button on a black box sitting on the floor. The computer whirred to life and she pressed another button on the monitor. The screen turned blue. White letters ordered her “To begin, click your user name.” There were four icons: Alice, Madison, Tom, and Olivia. (Did that mean the children used this computer? Weren’t they too little?) She clicked on her own name and a colorful photo filled the whole screen. It was the three children. They were all rugged up in parkas and scarves, sharing a toboggan that was flying down a snowy incline. Madison was at the back, Tom was in the middle, and the little one, Olivia, was at the front. Madison had hold of the control rope. Their mouths were open as if laughing or shrieking, and their eyes were wide with fear and exhilaration.

Alice put a hand to the base of her throat. They were extraordinarily beautiful. She wanted the memory of that day back so bad. She stared at the photo and for a second she thought she heard the faint sounds of children shouting, the feeling of an icy-cold nose and fingertips . . . and as soon as she tried too hard to grab hold of it, it slipped deftly away.

Instead, she clicked on an icon that said E-mail. It asked for a password.

Naturally, she didn’t know it, but as she held her hands over the keyboard, her fingers went ahead and inexplicably typed out the word OREGANO.

What in the world? But it seemed her body remembered more than her mind because the screen was obediently vanishing, to be replaced by a dancing image of an envelope and a message saying, “You have 7 new messages.”

What inspired her to choose an herb for her password?

There was an e-mail from Jane Turner with the subject heading:

“How’s the head?”; another one from a Dominick Gordon (Who? Oh, of course. Him. Her boyfriend) with the subject heading: “Next weekend?” and five from names she didn’t recognize, all with the heading: “Mega Meringue Mother’s Day.”

Mega Meringue Mother’s Day. It made her want to snort with derision. It seemed like something Elisabeth—the old energetic Elisabeth—might have arranged. Not her.

There was also an e-mail from Nick Love, with no subject heading, dated Friday, the day of her accident. She clicked on it and read:Well a lot of traditions are going to have to change now, aren’t they? What a load of crap. XMAS Day WILL be different whatever we do. You can’t reasonably expect to have them for the morning AND the night, so I only get them for five f**king minutes in the middle of the day. It makes perfect sense for them to stay at Ella’s on XMAS eve. They love being with their cousins. Can’t YOU think of THEM for a change? This is all about YOU. As usual.

PS. Please make sure they pack their swimming costumes for the weekend. I’m taking them to the Aquatic Center on Sunday when I get back from Portugal.