Elisabeth said, “Did I? I don’t remember that.” She put down her mug and picked up a framed photo from the table next to her. “I used to see the children all the time when they were little. I adored them. I still do adore them, of course. It’s just that you’re all so busy. The children have so many activities. They’ve all got swimming lessons. Olivia has ballet. Tom plays soccer and Madison plays hockey. And the birthday parties! They’re always going to someone’s birthday party. Their social lives are amazing. I remember when they were little, I always knew exactly the right thing to get them for their birthdays. They’d rip off the paper in a frenzy. Now I have to ring you, and you tell me exactly where to go and what to ask for. Or else you just buy it yourself and I give you the money. And then you make the children send me a thank-you card. Dear Auntie Libby. Thank you so much for my blah blah.”

“A thank-you card,” repeated Alice.

“Yes. I know, I know, it’s teaching them good manners and everything, but I sort of hate those thank-you cards. I always imagine the kids groaning and having to be forced into writing them. It makes me feel like an elderly aunt.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No! I can’t believe I complained about thank-you cards. I’ve become a bitter old hag. Have you noticed?”

“It sounds more like I’ve become—” Alice didn’t know how to describe the person it seemed she’d become. Insufferable?

“Anyway,” said Elisabeth dismissively. “Your children. Well, Madison is just Madison.” She smiled fondly.

Madison is just Madison. There was a whole world of memories in that sentence. If that world were lost to Alice forever, it would be unbearable.

“Mum always says, ‘Where did we get her from?’” said Elisabeth.

“Okay,” said Alice. This really wasn’t helping much.

“Well, ever since she was a baby, she’s always been so intense. She feels everything very deeply. On Christmas Eve she’d become almost feverish with excitement, but then she couldn’t stand it when Christmas was over. You’d find her sobbing in a corner because she had to wait a whole year for Christmas to come again. What else? She’s accident prone. She ran through those French doors last year and had to have forty-two stitches. It was very traumatic. A lot of blood. Apparently, Tom called an ambulance and Olivia fainted. I didn’t know it was possible for a five-year-old to faint. But Olivia has a blood phobia. Well, she did. I don’t know if she’s still got it. Actually, didn’t she get all excited about becoming a nurse for a while there? When Mum bought her that nurse’s uniform?”

Alice just looked at her.

“I’m sorry,” said Elisabeth, flustered. “I can’t imagine how weird this must feel—and I keep forgetting.”

Alice said, “Tell me more about the Sultana. I mean, Madison.”

“Madison likes to cook,” said Elisabeth. “Well, I assume she still does. I believe she’s been a bit moody lately. She used to make her own recipes. They were good, too. Except the kitchen always looked like a bomb had exploded and she wasn’t so good at the cleaning up part. Also she was a bit of a prima donna about her cooking. If the recipe didn’t turn out exactly the way she wanted, she’d cry. I once saw her throw this triple-layer chocolate cake she’d spent hours decorating in the bin. You went ballistic.”

“I did?” Alice tried to readjust yet again to this new picture of herself. She never got angry. She was more of a sulker.

“Well, apparently you’d gone on some special shopping trip to find exactly the right ingredients for this cake, so I don’t really blame you.”

“Madison sounds like one of the Flakes,” said Alice. It had never occurred to her before that Nick’s sisters’ genes could infiltrate her child. She had always assumed that if she had a daughter, it would be a miniature version of herself, a fresh new Alice she could improve upon, maybe with Nick’s eyes thrown in for interest.

“No, she’s not like the Flakes,” said Elisabeth definitely. “She’s just Madison.”

Alice pressed her palms to her stomach and thought about how fiercely she and Nick had loved the Sultana. It had been such clean, simple, almost narcissistic love. Now the Sultana ran through glass doors and threw cakes in the bin and made Alice “ballistic.” It was all so much more complex and chaotic than she’d ever imagined.

“And Tom? What’s he like?”

“He’s smart,” said Elisabeth. “And surprisingly witty at times. He’s a suspicious kid. You can’t put anything over him. He goes and checks it up on the Internet. He gets obsessed with things and learns everything there is to know about them. It was dinosaurs for a while. And then roller coasters. I don’t know what he’s into at the moment. He does really well at school. He gets awards, and he’s class captain. That sort of thing.”

“That’s good,” said Alice.

“It was probably a relief after Madison.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh. Well, it’s just that Madison has always had problems at school. ‘Behavioral problems’ you call them.”

“Right.”

“But I think you’ve got it all under control. I haven’t heard of any dramas for a while.”

Dramas. Alice had a life with “dramas.”

“And then there’s Olivia,” said Elisabeth. “She’s just one of those children everyone adores. When we took her out when she was a baby, people used to stop you in the street to compliment you. Even serious middle-aged businessmen rushing along to meetings would smile when they saw Olivia sitting in the stroller. It was like being with a celebrity, heads turning everywhere. And she’s still so cute. We keep waiting for her to turn into a monster, but she doesn’t. She’s very loving—maybe too loving. I remember her squatting down in the kitchen saying, ‘Hello, little fella,’ and we all looked down and saw she was trying to pat a cockroach. Mum nearly dropped dead on the spot.”