(The night before she hit her head.)

It was beautiful.

Well, okay, it was awkward. (For example, he seemed to think he should lick her toes. Where had he got such an idea? It tickled unbearably, and she accidentally kicked him in the nose.)

But still, it had been so, so lovely to have a man appreciating her body again. Right down to her toes.

Dominick was the right sort of man for her. Nick had been a mistake. How can you pick the right man when you’re in your twenties and stupid?

The grief started to ease a little. It was still there, but it wasn’t an impossible weight crushing her chest. She kept herself very busy.

She stopped by at Dino’s one afternoon for a coffee and found a small crowd of solemn-faced people surrounding a woman having some sort of attack on the footpath. Even Dino was out there. Alice went to avert her eyes—it seemed like the poor woman might be mentally ill—when she saw to her horror that it was her sister. It was Elisabeth, and when Dino told her what had happened, her first feeling was shame. How could she not have seen that it had got so bad? As she was explaining to Dino what Elisabeth had been going through, she felt a growing anger at herself. It was like she’d just come to accept Elisabeth’s miscarriages as part of life. She’d led Elisabeth to her car and left her sitting in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, and then she’d gone back and managed to soothe the mother of the child Elisabeth had apparently tried to kidnap. (It was Judy Clarke. Judy had a son in Madison’s class.) On the way home Elisabeth said, “Thanks,” and nothing else.

Well, enough was enough. This endless cycle of miscarriages had to stop. They were just beating their heads against a brick wall, and Elisabeth was losing her mind. Alice had lost her best friend and her marriage had fallen apart but she was still getting on with things. Someone needed to talk sense to Elisabeth. As soon as she got home, Alice got on the Internet to research adoption. Last Thursday she made a fresh batch of banana muffins and then she rang up Ben and told him she was having trouble with her car. He said he’d be right over.

“I wonder if we should call a doctor?”

“No,” said Alice out loud, her eyes shut. “I’m all right. Just give me a minute.”

Now she was remembering the past week. It was as if she’d been permanently drunk. She was mortified.

She hadn’t had time for breakfast the morning of the spin class with Jane, and actually, now she thought about it, she hadn’t even had any water, which was stupid, no wonder she’d fainted. Her last memory was pedaling hard, sweat dripping, listing off in her head everything she had to do for Mega Meringue Day, only half listening to Narelle (the annoying instructor: Spin Crazy Girl) going on about “the finish line” and “the semi-trailer holding you up.” Instead, she was watching the television screen playing soundlessly above Narelle’s head. There was a commercial on that always irked Alice, featuring a woman looking flirtatiously at the camera while licking a glob of cream cheese off the tip of her finger (she looked a bit like Jackie Holloway) and Alice was feeling sick at the very thought of eating cream cheese.

That’s why her mixed-up brain had been thinking about cream cheese when she regained consciousness.

Being carried out of the spin class like that. How completely bizarre that she didn’t recognize the gym, or Maggie’s husband on the treadmill, or Kate Harper coming out of the lift.

The shock of finding she and Nick were divorcing.

Talking to Nick’s PA on the phone. That awful woman had never liked her (Alice suspected a crush) and since the separation she’d become quite breathtakingly rude.

Dancing the salsa at the Family Talent Night. That “chemistry” she imagined she felt. Good Lord, she’d given back Granny Love’s ring. She’d been determined to keep that ring for Madison. Now it might go to Nick’s new wife if he ever remarried. It was part of Madison’s heritage.

He’d bet her twenty dollars that she wouldn’t want to get back together when she got her memory back. He must have been laughing at her the whole time.

She had kissed Nick. It made her sick to the stomach. He was using her memory loss to get her to agree to the fifty-percent care arrangement. Thank God she’d never signed anything.

For heaven’s sake, they’d taken Madison for ice creams and whale watching after she’d cut off Chloe’s hair. Talk about the right way to bring up a delinquent.

She’d told Mrs. Bergen that she’d switched sides on the development issue. Well, she’d just have to tell her that she’d switched right back. She didn’t want to stay living in the house. Too many memories. The developers could knock it to the ground and put up the tackiest, most sterile high-rise apartment block for all she cared.

Tom was meant to have been one of the Elvis dancers today! She had his suit already. He’d deliberately not reminded her.

Nora hadn’t mentioned the sponsors in her speech!

She needed to check all the paperwork for the Guinness Book of Records. Everything had to be done properly or it wouldn’t be an official record. Maggie and Nora meant well but they didn’t really know what they were doing.

The mum standing next to her with the birthmark was Anne Russell, mother of little Kerrie, in Tom’s class. They helped together at the library on the same day. How could she have forgotten Anne Russell?

How could she have forgotten any of it?

Alice opened her eyes.

She was sitting on the grass of the school oval.