“No. He’s very different from Nick.”

Now, what exactly did that mean? Should she be offended on Nick’s behalf? Anyway, she wasn’t going to have a conversation comparing their pros and cons, as if they were competing boyfriends. Nick was her husband. She changed the subject instead. She said, “Well, speaking of men, I liked Ben.”

“It’s funny to hear you talk about him as if you’ve only just met him.”

“What did Ben mean when he said he’d been thinking about our discussion the other day?” Alice knew there was something controversial about this topic; it was time to get to the bottom of whatever this thing was between her and Elisabeth.

“Ummm.” Elisabeth yawned and stretched. “Do you want a glass of water?”

“No thanks.”

“I’m really thirsty.” She stood up and went into the kitchen. Alice watched her go and wondered if she was pretending not to have heard her.

She came back with the glass of water and sat back down on the single couch in front of Alice.

“It’s late,” she said.

“Libby.”

Elisabeth sighed. “On Thursday—the day before your accident—Ben came over to help you with some problem you were having with your car. Except apparently there wasn’t really a problem at all. It was a little setup.”

Good grief. What had she done? Alice sat up straight. She could feel her face flushing. Surely she hadn’t made a move on her sister’s husband? (For one thing, the man was freakishly large.) Had breaking up with Nick sent her over the edge?

“You gave him banana muffins straight out of the oven. He loves your banana muffins.”

Oh my Lord.

“With lots of butter. I never let him have butter. He’s got high cholesterol, you know. I mean, you’re the health-conscious one.”

She’d seduced her brother-in-law with butter. Alice’s heart pounded.

“And then you gave him your little speech.”

“Little speech?” said Alice faintly.

“Yes, your little speech about why we should stop IVF and adopt. You had brochures. Application forms. Website addresses. You’d done all this research.”

Alice couldn’t get her head around it for a few seconds. Her mind had been filled with horrific images of herself going upstairs to “freshen up” and appearing in red lingerie.

“Adoption,” she repeated confusedly.

“Yes. You think we should pop over to a Third World country like Angelina and Brad and help ourselves to a cute orphan.”

“That was very presumptuous of me,” said Alice sternly, weak with relief that she hadn’t tried to seduce Ben. “Meddlesome. Nosey!”

Then again, she thought, wasn’t adoption actually a pretty good idea?

“Well,” said Elisabeth. “I was angry. When Ben came home and told me, I rang you and we got into a big argument about it. You think it’s time we ‘faced reality.’”

“Did I really say that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I guess you meant well. It’s just that you made me feel as if you thought I was stupid. As if you would never have let things get so far. As if you would never be so messy as to keep having miscarriage after miscarriage. As if, I don’t know, as if I’ve been overly emotional about the whole thing.”

“I’m sorry,” said Alice again. “I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t even remember it,” said Elisabeth. “Once you remember it, you’ll feel differently. Anyway, I said some pretty nasty things to you.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not saying them again! I didn’t even mean them. This lets me off the hook.”

They were silent for a few seconds. Alice said, “Are Angelina and Brad friends of yours?”

Elisabeth snorted. “Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. You’ve forgotten all your celebrity gossip, too.”

“I thought Brad Pitt was engaged to Gwyneth Paltrow.”

“Ancient history. He’s married and divorced Jennifer Aniston since then, and Gwyneth has had a baby called Apple. I’m not kidding. Apple.”

“Oh.” Alice felt unaccountably sad for Brad and Gwyneth. “They seemed happy in the photos.”

“Everyone looks happy in photos.”

“What about Bill and Hillary Clinton?” asked Alice. “Did they stay together?”

“You mean after the Lewinsky thing?” said Elisabeth. “Yes, they did. I don’t think anyone even thinks about that much anymore.”

Alice looked at Elisabeth. “So,” she said with wild abandon, “I take it you don’t want to adopt a baby?”

Elisabeth smiled a sick sort of a smile. “I would have considered it years ago, but Ben couldn’t stand the idea. He’s always been ideologically opposed to adoption because he’s adopted himself, and his mother is—difficult. He didn’t have a great childhood. My charming mother-in-law told him that his real mother couldn’t afford to keep him, so Ben saved up his money. He thought once he had a hundred dollars, he could write to his real mum to tell her he could be self-supporting now, so could she please take him back. On his birthday he always ran to the letterbox, thinking that maybe this year, out of the blue, his real mum might decide to send him a card.

“He thought his baby photos were ugly—he was a funny-looking baby— and he wondered if maybe his real mother hadn’t liked the look of him when he was born. He always felt that his parents wished they had chosen a smaller, smarter son. He’d spent his whole childhood keeping his room tidy, not saying much, feeling like a big clumsy visitor in his own home. It breaks my heart to think of it. When you were saying earlier that Nick wanted to be a good father to make up for his own father leaving, well, Ben was similar. He wanted his own biological child. He wanted to have someone who looked like him, who had the same eyes or whatever. And I was so looking forward to giving him that. I so badly wanted to give him that.”