What could I have said to her? No, I’ve never actually been pregnant, but I did lose my stepson. Does that count? He’s that beautiful kid over there helping his new stepmother with her handbag. He looks tired. I don’t think she’s feeding him right. Too much tofu and lentils. Not enough protein. And although I didn’t lose an actual baby, I did lose a dream baby, because that man over there stopped loving me, and now I’m too old, and he’s found someone younger and nicer.

They would say: No, that certainly does not count. Stop embarrassing yourself. Show some dignity. Some self-respect.

Fair enough too.

As I went down in the lift, I was still crying but wasn’t really aware of feeling any particular emotion. The tears were like a symptom of some peculiar disease. I was just waiting for them to stop.

I was walking back to my car when the pain in my leg suddenly became unbearable. If I used Ellen’s dial metaphor, it was like someone had twisted it up to high.

It was impossible to walk. I had to sit down. I looked around for a bus stop or a wall, but there wasn’t one anywhere, so I just sat down in the gutter, like a drunk. I couldn’t believe that just half an hour earlier I was dealing so efficiently with those developers and now here I was, crying in a gutter.

A man who had parked his car just in front of where I sat down came over to ask if I was OK. He looked like he was in his late sixties. One of those weathered friendly faces, like a man from the outback. He reminded me of Patrick’s dad. He seemed convinced that he’d seen me twist my ankle, and was talking about getting ice for it and how I needed to keep it elevated, and it took quite a while for him to realize that my ankle was fine. I finally had to explain to him that I had a pain in my leg that could not be explained or cured, and that I wasn’t crying because of the pain but because of “something personal.” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and took out a card. For a moment I thought he was giving me the name of a therapist, but he said, “This guy is a brilliant physio. I had terrible back pain a few months ago. Excruciating. Nearly brought me to tears. He fixed me right up. Good as new!”

I thanked him, and didn’t bother telling him that I’d already been to seven different physiotherapists and I wasn’t going to waste any more of my money.

“In the meantime, take a really strong painkiller,” he said. “And forget that schmuck! His loss, right? Plenty more fish in the sea for a gorgeous girl like you!” He gave me a little pat on the shoulder, and then he suddenly seemed embarrassed, as if he was worried he might be acting inappropriately; he stood up quickly, and his knees made a loud cracking sound, which his brilliant physio might need to take a look at.

Nice people! How do they get so nice? And how do they sustain it? All that smiling and caring and sharing? It must be exhausting and so time-consuming—keeping an eye out for strangers in need.

As I watched him go, I thought, for the first time in years: It must be nice to have a dad.

I bet Ellen has a lovely father, a daddy who bounced her on his knee and called her his princess. She has the look of someone who has been adored by her father.

I called up the office from the gutter and told them that I was going to work from home for the rest of the day.

I managed to hobble back to the car, and when I got home I took the nice dad-like man’s advice and found an old prescription painkiller in my medicine cupboard. I took two, and then I fell asleep. When I woke up, the brother and sister from the nice family next door were home from school and they were in the backyard. I tried to do some work, but my head felt so fuzzy and peculiar and I kept getting distracted by the sounds of their playing. For nice children they didn’t seem to be playing so nicely. It sounded like a toxic relationship: one minute laughter and singing and the next tears and screams of “Stop it!” I was under the impression that children stayed indoors these days and played computer games.

Eventually I gave up trying to work and I opened a bottle of red wine. I thought I would toast Patrick’s new baby.

That was my mistake. I’ve never been much of a drinker.

Ellen dreamed.

Her dreams were vivid and endless and exhausting. She knew she was dreaming and she kept trying to wake up properly so the dreams would stop, and every now and then she would find herself back in the reality of the dark room, turning over to readjust her pillow, nudging Patrick to stop him snoring, but then before she could stop herself, she’d find herself falling asleep again, toppling headfirst into a canyon of swirling thoughts and faces and sounds.

Her mother and her godmothers were running along a beach, naked, laughing in that schoolgirl way that always made her feel left out.

“They’re showing off,” she said to her father, who was sitting on the beach next to her, fully dressed, thankfully, in his suit and tie. He had sauce from his Moroccan chicken wrap on his lip.

Ellen said, “The daughter’s relationship with her father is the model for all her future relationships.” She felt proud, as if she was making some sort of incredibly subtle, ironic, witty point.

Her father was reading the newspaper now. He glanced up at her with an expression of pure disgust on his face. “This article is about you,” he said.

“It’s not true,” said Ellen, filled with shame and hurt beyond belief.

“It is true,” said a girl who was sitting in front of Ellen patting a sandcastle into shape with a yellow spade.

“Colleen!” said Ellen. She was going to be extremely nice to her because that was the sort of person she was. “How are you?”