Okay, so once you leave here, you’ve got to—

Her mind went blank.

. . . you’ve got to . . .

Her hair was done.

She snapped off the hair dryer, pulled the plug out of the socket, twirled the cord round and round, and shoved it back into the bag and began to rustle again for something else. Good Lord. Why was she moving so fast? Where was the fire?

She pulled out the flat plastic bag with the clothes, shook it open, and pulled out the matching cream underwear and dress. The underwear felt smooth and luxurious against her skin and the bra lifted her br**sts back to their former perky position. Surely this beautiful dress would not fit, but she was sliding it over her head, doing up the zipper at the side without having to look for it, and there were no bulges of unsightly fat because she didn’t have them anymore.

Jewelry. She found the topaz necklace and Nick’s bracelet and put them on. Shoes. She slid her feet into them.

She stopped and looked at the woman in the mirror and watched her bottom lip drop in awe.

She looked, well, she had to say that she looked pretty good. She turned side to side and observed herself over one shoulder.

An attractive, elegant, slim woman. The sort of woman she never thought it was possible for her to be. She had become one of those women, those other women, who had seemed too perfectly put together to be real.

Why did Nick want to leave her if she looked this damned good?

There was still something missing.

Perfume.

She found it in the zippered section at the front of the toiletries bag. She sprayed it on both wrists and suddenly she was leaning forward, grasping both sides of the basin to stop herself from falling. The scent was vanilla, mandarin, and roses. Her whole life was right there in that scent. She was being sucked into a massive swirling vortex of grief and fury and the ring, ring, ring of the phone and the rising whiny shriek of a child and the babble of the television and Nick sitting on the end of the bed, bent right over with his hands laced tightly around the back of his head.

“Excuse me?”

There was a knock on the bathroom door.

“Excuse me? Will you be much longer? It’s just that I’m dying to go!” Alice stood slowly back up. The color had drained from her face. Was she going to be sick again, like yesterday? No.

“Sorry!” she called out. “Won’t be a second.”

She put her hands in the sink and used the pink soap from the soap dispenser to scrub away hard at the perfume. As the straightforward, bracing smell of strawberry bubble gum mixed with disinfectant filled her nostrils, the vortex receded.

I don’t remember.

I don’t remember.

I won’t remember.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Dr. Hodges She was dressed and waiting for me when I went to pick her up from the hospital. She had dark circles under very red eyes, but her hair was done and her makeup perfect as always.

She looked so much like her normal self that I was sure she must have her memory back and this strange interlude in our lives was all over.

I said, “Has it all come back to you now?” and she said, “Just about,” and avoided my eyes and I thought she must have felt embarrassed about what she’d said about Nick. She said she’d been checked over by the doctor, and signed all the forms, and couldn’t wait to get home to her own bed.

She didn’t say much as we were leaving the hospital, and I didn’t either. When she finally went to speak, I thought for sure she would be talking about all the million things she had to do that weekend and the precious time she’d lost being in hospital. Instead she said, “How many children do you have?”

I said, “Alice!” and nearly swerved the car as I turned my head to look at her.

She said, “I’m sorry I didn’t ask earlier, I think I was just in shock. I would have rung Mum to ask her but I wasn’t sure whether she still had the same phone, and then I thought, What if Roger answers the phone?”

I said I thought she had her memory back, and she said, “Well, not exactly.”

I started insisting that we go straight back to the hospital and asking did she lie to the doctor to get herself discharged, and she stuck her chin out (she looked just like Madison). She said if I took her back to the hospital, she would just say that she didn’t know what I was talking about because her memory was perfect and then the hospital would have to decide which one was crazy and she bet they’d choose me and next thing they’d have me in a straitjacket.

I said I didn’t think they used straitjackets anymore. (Do they, Dr. Hodges? Have you got an emergency one in your drawer, ready to whip out at a moment’s notice?)

Alice folded her arms across her chest and writhed about as if she was in a straitjacket, saying, “Let me out! My sister is the nutter! I’m the sensible one!”

I was flabbergasted. She was being so . . . silly. So old Alice.

Next thing we were giggling like schoolkids. We laughed and laughed and I kept driving her toward her house because I didn’t know what else to do. It was so strange, laughing like that with Alice. It was like tasting something delicious I hadn’t eaten for years. I’d forgotten that drunken, euphoric feeling of being rocked with laughter. We both cry proper tears when we laugh hard enough. It’s a family trait we inherited from our dad. How funny. I’d forgotten that too.

Eventually they stopped laughing and became quiet.

Alice wondered if Elisabeth would return to the subject of going back to the hospital, but she didn’t say anything. Instead she wiped under each eye with a fingertip, sniffed, and reached over to turn on the car stereo. Alice steeled herself; Elisabeth enjoyed the sort of loud, angry, heavy metal music that normally appealed to teenage boys in hotted-up cars and made Alice’s head ache. Instead, slow chords and a mellow female voice filled the car, as if they were in a smoky jazz bar. Elisabeth’s taste in music had changed. Alice relaxed and looked out the window. The streets of Sydney looked pretty much as she remembered them. Had that coffee shop always been there? That block of units looked new, although it was entirely possible they’d been there for twenty years and she’d just never noticed them before.