Vicki whisked her into the ladies’ room, where the two of them sat on a velvet divan and finished their drinks. When they emerged, they bumped into Peter. He was standing near the emergency exit—Melanie remembered his face bathed in the red light of the exit sign in an otherwise dark alcove—talking to Frances Digitt. Frances Digitt was dressed in the suit she’d worn to work, a dark suit with a short skirt—and over the suit she wore a fleece vest. She looked like an executive for Field & Stream.

Melanie thought nothing of the sight of Peter and Frances together. She was more concerned with having to answer Frances’s questions about the latest round of IVF. Frances showed enormous interest in the Patchens’ quest for a baby; her sister, Jojo, in California was going through the exact same thing, or so she claimed. And, too, Melanie felt embarrassed about being caught emerging from the ladies’ room with Vicki. This was one of the antisocial behaviors Peter always accused her of after an office party: You snuck off to the bathroom with Vicki like the two of you were in junior high.

“Now, if I’d been paying attention,” Melanie said to Josh. “If I had seen past the end of my own nose . . .”

“He was having an affair with her?” Josh asked.

“Oh, yes,” Melanie said. “Yes, he was. He stil is.”

“Stil is? Even with . . .”

“He doesn’t know I’m pregnant.”

“He doesn’t? ”

“Nope.”

“How come you haven’t told him?”

“Ugh. Because he doesn’t deserve to know.”

Josh squeezed Melanie. It was exactly what she needed—a person to console her, a young, handsome, male person. She twisted around so that she was facing him. He was looking very serious.

“What?” she said.

“This is weird,” Josh said. “Can we please just acknowledge how weird this is?”

“Why is it weird?” Melanie said. She knew why it was weird but she wanted to hear him say it.

“You’re married,” he said. “You’re pregnant. I know you’re pregnant but your own husband doesn’t even know.”

“You don’t have to worry about Peter,” she said.

“I’m not worried about Peter,” Josh said. “I’m worried about what everyone is going to think. Vicki. Ted.”

“They’re not going to think anything,” Melanie said. “Because they’re not going to know.”

“They’re not?”

“They’re not.”

“Oh,” he said. “Okay.” He exhaled and seemed to relax a little bit. He was drunk, or nearly so. Whatever happened tonight happened tonight—

and that would be the end of it. Okay? Melanie asked herself. Okay. She kissed him, and this seemed to catch him off-guard, though what were they doing on a bench in the church garden if they weren’t planning on kissing? It only took a second or two for Josh to get it, and then it was as if Melanie were a car he decided he wanted to drive after al . The kissing, which Melanie had intended to keep sweet and soft, turned into something faster and more urgent. Josh ran his hands up and down her back, then up and down her back inside her shirt, and Melanie, who hadn’t kissed a man other than Peter in nearly ten years, couldn’t keep herself from wondering if this utterly intoxicating foreignness was what Peter experienced when he was with Frances Digitt.

Josh’s youth was apparent in many ways. He was strong, forceful, intense. (With Peter, at the end, physical contact had been like work, like a duty—he complained of this and she’d felt it, too.) Josh fondled her tender breasts, he chewed on her earlobe and whispered into her ear, “God, you are so amazing.” Amazing? Melanie thought. Me?

But when Josh moved his hands down over her stomach, he pul ed back, like he was afraid he might burn himself. Melanie took hold of his hands and tried to place them on her midsection, but he resisted.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

“It is?” he said. He al owed her to press his hands to her bel y, but stil she sensed reluctance. What was she doing, forcing a drunk col ege student to acknowledge her budding pregnancy?

“Relax,” she said. “It’s okay.” She should just let it go, she realized. Let him take what parts of her he wanted and choose to ignore the parts that lay outside his comfort zone—but if they were to go any further, Melanie wanted him to accept her as she was. Thirty-one years old. And pregnant.

It occurred to Melanie for a second that maybe Josh wasn’t mature enough to handle this, maybe he didn’t want to handle a woman like her, with baggage, emotional and physical. She was his second choice for a reason. How could she blame him for wanting Brenda, who was not only beautiful but also unencumbered? How could she blame him for wanting some easy girl his own age that he met at a bar or a bonfire instead?

It seemed like they stayed in that moment for a very long time—with Melanie holding Josh’s hands to the life inside of her—enough time for Melanie to travel down the road of insecurity and doubt, enough time for her to reach the conclusion that she’d made a mistake. She let Josh’s hands go—in fact, she pushed them away—feeling stupid and foolish. She had been wrong to pursue him; she had been wrong to put any stock in her own kooky, adolescent feelings.

Josh separated from her. She heard him inhale, as if in relief of being cut free. But what Josh did next was so unexpected, it took Melanie’s breath away. He lifted up her shirt and lowered his head. He pressed his face to her bel y, and he kissed her there, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

S leep.

Vicki left a note. Gone for a walk, it said. To Sankaty Light.

She couldn’t sleep—or rather, after the beach picnic she fel asleep like a rock sinking to the bottom of a riverbed and then she awoke with a jolt.

She lifted Ted’s arm and looked at his watch: 1:00 AM. Vicki’s head was buzzing; she was wide awake. The room was dark, the house quiet except for Ted’s gentle snoring. Vicki flipped over and caught sight of the Styrofoam head, the wig, the ghoulish face, Daphne, and it freaked her out. She rose from bed, picked the head up, and set it in the back of the closet. In the morning, it was going to the dump.

The boys were sleeping on their mattress on the floor. They were on their backs, their heads together at the top of the mattress. Blaine had an arm flung protectively across Porter’s chest . They were sleeping with just a sheet, which was now bunched down by Blaine’s ankles. Vicki stood at the foot of the mattress, watching them. Because it was so warm, Blaine slept in only short pajama bottoms and Porter in just a diaper. Their torsos were perfectly formed—Blaine lean and muscular, Porter chubby with baby fat—and their skin was milky white; it glowed. Vicki could pick out a pattern of poison ivy on the back of Porter’s leg, she could discern a juicy new mosquito bite on Blaine’s forearm. Their dark eyelashes fanned out against their cheeks; Blaine’s eyelids were alive with movement underneath. What was he dreaming about?

There was, she decided, no more beautiful sight than her children sleeping. She loved her sons so profoundly, their perfect bodies and al the complexities each contained, that she thought she might explode. My children, she thought. They were bodies that had come from her body, they were a part of her—and yet she would die and they would live.

Vicki had entered into motherhood whol y unprepared. She had woken up confused when the nurse brought Blaine in to feed on the night he was born. The reality had sunk in, gradual y, over the past four and a half years. This child is my responsibility. Mine. For the rest of my life.

Being a mother was the best of al human experiences, and also the most excruciating. Getting the baby to nurse, getting the baby to eat solids, getting the baby to sleep, the teething, the crying, the crawling, into everything, can’t take my eyes off him for a second, a whole rol of toilet paper stuffed into the toilet, the first steps, the fal ing, the trips to the emergency room ( Does he need stitches? ), the Cheerios that stuck together and nearly choked him, the weaning from the breast, the bottle, the pacifier, the grating squeal of Elmo’s voice, the first playdate, the hitting, the grabbing, the first word, Dada (Dada?), the second word, mine, the earaches, the diaper rash, the croup. It was a constant drone, al day, every day, occupying Vicki’s hands, her eyes, her mind. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Who did she used to be? She couldn’t remember.

Vicki used to think that Blaine was born for her mind and Porter was born for her heart. Blaine was so damn capable, so independent, so smart.

Before Vicki was diagnosed, he had taught himself to read, he knew his states and state capitals ( Frankfort, Kentucky), and he kept a list of animals that were nocturnal ( bat, opossum, raccoon). A day with Blaine was one long conversation: Watch me, watch me, watch me, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. Will you play Old Maid? Will you do the puzzle? Can we paint? Do Play-Doh? Practice numbers and letters? What day is today? What day is tomorrow? When can Leo come over? What time is it? When is Daddy coming home? How many days until we go to Nantucket? How many days until Porter’s birthday? How many days until my birthday? Blaine’s favorite time of day was story time, and better than the stories Vicki held in her hands, he said, were the ones in her mind. He loved the story of the night he was born (Vicki’s water breaking unexpectedly, ruining the suede Ralph Lauren sofa in their pre-kids Manhattan apartment), he liked the story of the night Porter was born (her water breaking in the Yukon on her way home from dinner in New Canaan; Ted drove like a banshee to Fairfield Hospital, and Vicki delivered in time for Ted to get their babysitter home before midnight). But Blaine’s favorite story was about how Vicki had punched Auntie Brenda in the nose when Auntie Brenda was a newborn, freshly home from the hospital, and how Auntie Brenda bled, and Vicki, feeling scared of what her mother would say, locked herself in the bathroom, and a fireman had to come get her out. As Vicki watched Blaine sleep, she realized she hadn’t told him any real stories in a long time—and what was worse, he’d stopped asking for them. Maybe someday she’d tel him the story of how she had lung cancer and they came to Nantucket for the summer and she got better.