“What’s that?” Jenna asked.

“Did you go to Brant Point?”

“Yes,” Jenna said.

“And did you go to Madaket?”

“Of course,” Jenna said.

“I didn’t see you,” Margot said. “If you had biked to Madaket, I would have seen you.”

“I didn’t bike,” Jenna said. “I hitched a ride.”

“You hitched?” Margot said. “I’m surprised anyone stopped to pick you up. You look like an Alphabet City junkie.”

“Four Bulgarian guys in a red pickup,” Jenna said. “It was pretty funny. They’re baggers at the Stop & Shop.”

“That’s not funny,” Margot said. “They could have taken advantage of you. Who brought you back to town?”

“The guy driving the Santos Rubbish truck.”

“Really?” Margot said.

“Really,” Jenna said.

“But you knew I would come looking for you, right?” Margot said. “You knew I would find you.”

“I figured probably,” Jenna said.

Margot gulped fresh air from the one partially open window. She was sweating, she was very, very thirsty, and Roger-who represented 150 people and over a hundred thousand dollars-was waiting for an answer one way or the other.

“Listen…” Margot said.

“No,” Jenna said. “You listen.”

Margot clamped her mouth shut and nodded once sharply. She hadn’t known what to say next anyway.

“I thought Stuart was different,” Jenna said. “I thought he was a good egg.”

“Jenna,” Margot said. “He is a good egg.”

“He’s just like everyone else,” Jenna said. She cleared her throat, then said, “Finn slept with Nick! She told me she thinks she’s fallen in love with him! After one afternoon on a paddleboard, she thought nothing of letting him join her in the outdoor shower, the second you walked out the door!”

Margot put up a traffic cop hand. “Please,” she said. “Please don’t tell me any details.”

“And do you know what Finn’s excuse is? Scott was unfaithful first! Scott hooked up with some waitress from Hooters on a golf trip to Tampa in April. He and Finn had only been married six months, she was thinking about trying to get pregnant, then he goes away on this golf trip with the guys, no big deal, because Scott is always going on golf trips with the guys, only this time he comes home and gives Finn the clap-and then he has to confess about the skanky waitress. Now he’s in Vegas, and instead of being on his best behavior, he told Finn that all the guys were getting lap dances, and going to a private party with performing lesbians.”

Margot sighed. “She was obviously bent out of shape about that on Thursday night.”

“So then Nick shows up and starts paying all kinds of sweet attention to her.” Jenna sniffled and wiped her nose on the neckline of her dress. Margot winced. “And Finn starts imagining they have all this history, she’s been in love with him since she was thirteen years old and he came home from Penn State, then yesterday they had this magical day at Fat Ladies Beach, and…”

“And I left for the yacht club,” Margot said. Because she was so anxious to see Edge. She should have waited for Nick and Finn. She should have stayed home and chaperoned.

“And it’s Nick,” Jenna said. “And apparently he just can’t help himself. Doesn’t matter that Finn is married, doesn’t matter that I was her maid of honor, or that she’s my bridesmaid and best friend.”

“You can’t let Nick’s behavior or Finn’s poor judgment influence you,” Margot said.

“Then we have Dad and Pauline. He’s sixty-four, and she’s… what? Sixty-one? This was supposed to be their great second chance at love; they were supposed to grow old together. But no. Love has died there as well, and now Dad will start dating younger and younger women-your age first, then my age, then Emma Wilton’s age…”

“Jenna…”

“And then we have Stuart’s parents. I used to think their story was so lovely-at least the part where they got married for a second time. But last night, when I met Helen, I felt sick, and that was even before she opened her mouth about Stuart and Crissy Pine. She’s this freaking Swedish supermodel-type woman, and she wore that look-at-me, center-of-attention dress when she was lucky to be invited to the wedding at all. Ann only included her because Ann is a saint.”

“Okay,” Margot said, thinking, Stupid Ann.

“And when Chance got sick and Jim and Helen left for the hospital, it became, duh, obvious to me that Jim had cheated on Ann, cheated badly. He had a child with another woman!”

Margot wanted to say, Oh, come on, that just occurred to you tonight? What kind of Pollyanna world had Jenna been living in? But instead Margot said, “You can’t let other people’s failings-”

“But worst of all,” Jenna said, “worst of all is you.”

“Me?” Margot said. Her thoughts twirled and tumbled. How could she be the worst of all? Worse than Nick? Worse than Helen in the yellow dress? What did Jenna know about her personal life, anyway? Had Autumn told her about Edge? Had she seen Margot kissing Griff? And why would either of those things matter to Jenna?

“Of all the marriages I’ve ever seen, yours was my absolute favorite,” Jenna said. “And you just walked away from it.”

“My marriage?” Margot said. “You mean to Drum?”

“Maybe it was because of our age difference,” Jenna said. “I was still in high school when you got married, and as we know, I’m a hopeless romantic.”

“There was nothing romantic about when I got married,” Margot said. “Hello? It was a shotgun wedding.”

“You two were the coolest people I knew,” Jenna said. “When you two surfed together, you were so… beautiful. Then you got pregnant and Drum took you to dinner at the Blue Bistro and he gave you the oyster that had the diamond ring in it.”

“And I puked,” Margot said. “I saw the ring embedded in oyster mucous and I ran to the ladies’ room and threw up.”

“You got that amazing apartment in the city,” Jenna said.

“Drum’s parents bought us the apartment,” Margot said. “They picked it out, they paid for it. That’s not romantic or cool, Jenna. That’s mollycoddling.”

“You had your job,” Jenna said. “Drum watched the baby, he cooked those gourmet dinners and always had a glass of wine waiting for you when you got home. You took those great vacations to Costa Rica and Hawaii and Telluride.”

“Because Drum wanted to surf,” Margot said. “And he wanted to ski. I always got stuck at the hotel watching the kids.”

“I wanted your life,” Jenna said. She sniffled a little more. “I wanted the beautiful babies and the doorman building and the trips to exotic places. I wanted someone to love me as much as Drum loved you. He worshipped you, Margot. You were a goddess to him.”

Margot snorted. It was astonishing how warped Jenna’s view of her marriage was. “Please.”

“I got a text from Drum yesterday, you know,” Jenna said. “He said he’s getting married in the fall.”

Margot felt a pang of guilt. “I meant to tell you.”

Jenna brushed off her dress, an exercise in futility. The dress would end up in the trash, along with Margot’s stained white dress from Thursday night.

Margot thought, We are a couple of girls without a mother.

“So, anyway, my dream of you and Drum getting back together is over.”

“Excuse me,” Margot said. She decided to pull out some Taylor Swift lyrics, maybe make Jenna smile. “We were never, ever getting back together. Like ever.”

The joke was lost on her. She made a face. “But you two were perfect together!”

“Honestly,” Margot said. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. And that’s the thing about marriage. It can look perfect to people from the outside but be utterly imperfect on the inside. The reverse is true as well. No one knows what goes on in a marriage except for the two people living in it.”

“I lied when I said you were the worst,” Jenna said. “You weren’t the worst.”

Margot felt stupidly relieved. She pursed her lips; they were so dry, she feared they were going to crack.

“The worst of all…” Jenna trailed off and stared out the window. Her eyes filled. “The worst of all was Mom and Dad. At the end. I was there, watching them.”

“I know,” Margot said.

“You don’t know!” Jenna said. “You don’t know because you weren’t around. You were living in the city with Drum and the boys. You were working. Kevin was in San Francisco that spring, and Nick was in D.C. I was at home with them by myself.”

Yes, Margot remembered. Seven years ago, Drum Jr. had been five, and Carson only three. Margot had been desperately trying to make partner at Miller-Sawtooth, which meant not only acting like a person without two small children at home but also acting like a person whose mother was not dying an hour north in Connecticut. Margot would use the fifteen minutes she took for lunch in those days to call Beth. They talked about normal things-Drum Jr.’s kindergarten teacher, Carson’s biting problem, the placements Margot was working on. Only at the end of the conversation would they address the elephant in the room. Margot would ask Beth how she was feeling; Beth would lie and say she was feeling okay, the pain was manageable, she was glad, anyway, to be finished with chemo. Anything was better than chemo. Margot would promise to come to Connecticut over the weekend and bring the kids, but more than once she had failed to do so. Drum Jr. had kinder-soccer, or Carson took a longer nap than Margot expected, or Margot sneaked back into the office for a few hours-and plans for the trip to Connecticut were dashed.

Margot knew her brothers had been busy, too. Kevin had been trying to save the Coit Tower, and Nick had just taken the job with the Nationals. They were, all three of them, inconsolable about the idea of losing Beth, but they hadn’t been right there the way that Jenna had been. Jenna had taken a semester off from William and Mary to go home and be with Beth. She moved back in at the same time that Beth went into hospice.