“And the stupid thing is, when I have those thoughts, I feel like I should make up for it to Colleen by remembering all the good times I had with her. As penance. So the better it is with you, the more I think about her. Does that make sense? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a Catholic thing.”

“No, that makes sense.”

“Anyway, obviously, I do not spend my days comparing you and Colleen, like you’re in some sort of permanent ninja-fighting contest. To be honest, most of the time my thoughts are pretty superficial: like, hmm, I feel like lamb chops, or how can I beat Jack to level 4 on Tomb Raiders. That sort of thing.”

Ellen picked up two marshmallows and squished them together between her fingertips.

“When Colleen died everyone started talking about her as if she were a saint. People put on these mournful faces as if our marriage had been amazing, as if we never had a fight. And I think I bought into that. I was younger. Everything was simpler. So I guess that’s why I said what I said last night. Of course I’ll never love another woman the way I loved Colleen, because I’ll never be eighteen and falling in love for the first time again, but that doesn’t mean I’m not in love with you. And exactly the same thing applies in reverse. I never loved Colleen the way I love you.”

Ellen suddenly, unexpectedly yawned, and Patrick laughed. “Aren’t I meant to be the one yawning while you talk on about your feelings? Anyway, the bottom line is that I love you with all my heart. Not in a halfhearted, second-best way. I love you. And all I can do is spend the rest of my life proving that to you. Do you get that, my crazy hypnotist?”

He put his hand to the back of her head and kissed her, hard, as if they were saying good-bye at a railway station and he was going off to war.

A deeply peaceful feeling surged through her veins. It wasn’t so much what he’d said, but the two lines of fierce concentration between his eyes the whole time he was speaking made it seem as if it really, really mattered that she understood. Or maybe it was just because she was so very, very sleepy, and Luisa was pregnant, and the newspaper article wasn’t running.

“I think I get it,” she said when they came up for air.

“Thank God, because I don’t think I’ve ever talked about ‘feelings’ so much in my entire life as I have over the last two hours.” He handed her a marshmallow. “See? The last marshmallow. That’s love. Now let’s go to bed.”

Chapter 26

Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, believed that we should strive to create “Cities of Joy.” Hisobjective was to create urban infrastructure with one objective:happiness. As town planners, can we plan for happiness?Are we planning for happiness?

—Quote from a speaker at a seminar attended by Saskia

Brown following the death of her mother. “Plan for

happiness,” she wrote in her notebook.

It was a warm Saturday afternoon, two weeks after the accident, or the event, or whatever you want to call it. I’d been moved to a new room adjoining a courtyard where they sometimes wheeled me out for some fresh air. I could smell jasmine and the possibility of summer.

The surgery on my ankle had gone well, according to the doctors, and my pelvis fracture was healing as expected. No more morphine clicker. Just ordinary pain relief doled out in little plastic cups.

Lance’s wife, Kate, sat on the visitor’s chair next to me. We were both knitting. She’d been twice before to give me lessons, refusing to accept any money for the wool or the new needles she’d bought especially for me. My first project was to be a scarlet beanie with a big white pom-pom on top. It was for me. The thought had crossed my mind to knit something for Jack, or even for Patrick’s mother, Maureen, because she’d once knitted me a beret. An apology gift, I thought. Something to say good-bye. It would be a nice gesture. But as soon as I thought of it I saw an image in my head of a huge oak door, like something you’d see on a medieval castle. The door slammed shut in my face.

Kate said I was a “natural knitter.” I didn’t understand why she was being so kind to me. She didn’t seem like a “do-gooder,” as my mother used to call certain ladies from our church: the ones with saintly smiles who dropped off casseroles and bags of secondhand clothes but were always too busy being charitable to other needy folk to accept Mum’s offer of a cup of tea. I’ve always blamed those women for my godlessness.

I liked Kate. She was a tiny bit odd. Not eccentric, just a bit off-kilter. She always spoke a beat too late or too soon, and she dropped things a lot. She was friendly but not in that look-at-me-demonstrating-my-excellent-social-skills way. I felt strangely comfortable with her.

She told me that after we’d met at the Christmas party last year, she’d been telling Lance to invite me over for dinner one night, but Lance was too shy. She and Lance had only been in Sydney for a year.

“We’re on the hunt for new friends,” said Kate. “See, now that you’re trapped in your bed, you can’t get away from me. I’m stalking you.”

I laughed a bit too loudly at that.

Kate cleared her throat, and we fell silent. I listened to the gentle clack-clack of our knitting needles and the muted busy sounds of the hospital that had become the backdrop of my life.

“Speaking of making new friends, Tammy and I did a yoga class on the weekend,” said Kate suddenly. “I picked her up from your place.”

“I know,” I said. “She told me.”