Elisabeth stared at her with such grim, frightened concentration that Alice felt her silly grin drift away.

She reached out for the photo she’d left sitting on the chest of drawers next to her bed and handed it to Elisabeth, saying in a small, polite voice, “Are these my . . .” She felt more foolish than she’d ever felt in her life. “Are these my children?”

Elisabeth took the photo, glanced at it, and something complicated crossed her face, a barely perceptible tremor, and vanished. She smiled carefully and said, “Yes, Alice.”

Alice took a deep, shaky breath and closed her eyes. “I’ve never seen them before.”

She heard Elisabeth take a deep breath herself. “It’s just temporary, I’m sure. You probably just need to rest, to relax and—”

“What are they like?” Alice opened her eyes. “Those children. Are they . . . nice?”

Elisabeth said in a stronger voice, “They’re wonderful, Alice.”

Alice said, “Am I a good mother? Do I look after them all right? What do I feed them? They’re so big!”

“Your children are your life, Alice,” said Elisabeth. “You’ll remember for yourself soon. It will all come back. Just—”

“I could cook them sausages, I guess,” said Alice, cheering up at the thought. “Kids love sausages.”

Elisabeth stared. “You would never feed them sausages.”

“I thought I was pregnant,” said Alice. “But they did a blood test and told me I’m definitely not. I don’t feel like I am, but I can’t believe I’m not. I can’t believe it.”

“No. Well, I don’t think you would be pregnant—”

“Three kids!” said Alice. “We’re only going to have two.”

“Olivia was an accident,” said Elisabeth stiffly, as if she disapproved.

“None of this seems real,” said Alice. “I’m like Alice in Wonderland. Remember how much I hated that book? Because nothing made sense. You didn’t like it either. We liked things to make sense.”

“I can imagine it must feel really strange, but it’s not going to last, it’s all going to come back to you any minute. You must have hit your head quite . . . severely.”

“Yes. Very severely.” Alice picked up the photo again. “So this little girl. This little girl is the oldest, so she must be my first baby, right? So we had a girl?”

“Yes, you did.”

“We thought it was a boy.”

“I remember that.”

“And labor! I went through labor three times? What was my labor like? I’m so nervous about it. I mean, I was . . .”

“I think you had a pretty easy time with Madison, but there were complications with Olivia—” Elisabeth fidgeted in her plastic seat. “Look, Alice, I think I should go and try to talk to one of your doctors. I’m finding this really hard. It’s weird. It’s really . . . scary.”

Alice reached out for Elisabeth’s arm in a panic. She couldn’t stand to be alone again. “No, no, don’t go. Someone will be around soon. They keep coming and checking on me. Hey, Libby, I called Nick at work and they told me he was in Portugal! Portugal! What’s he doing there? I left a message with some horrible secretary. I stood up to her. You’d be proud of me! I showed backbone. My backbone was like steel.”

“Good for you,” said Elisabeth. She looked as if she’d just eaten something that disagreed with her.

“But he still hasn’t called me back,” sighed Alice.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Dr. Hodges It was only when she started talking about Nick being in Portugal that the obvious hit me, and it seemed even more shocking than when she asked me whether her children were “nice.”

She really has forgotten everything.

Even Gina.

Chapter 7

“So, you seriously don’t remember anything, not a single thing, since 1998?” Elisabeth shifted the plastic chair in closer toward Alice’s bed and leaned toward her, as if it was time to get to the bottom of this. “Nothing at all?”

“Well, I’ve been having some funny snippets of things come into my mind,” said Alice. “But none of them make sense.”

“Okay, so tell me about them,” urged Elisabeth. Her face was closer now to Alice and the lines on either side of her mouth were even deeper than Alice had first thought. Goodness. Involuntarily, Alice pressed her fingertips to her own skin; she still hadn’t looked at herself in a mirror.

She said, “Well, when I first woke up, I was having this dream, and I couldn’t tell if it was just a dream or something that really happened. I was swimming, and it was a beautiful summer’s morning, and my toenails were all painted different colors. There was somebody else with me and their toenails were painted the same way. Hey, maybe the other person was you? I bet it was you!”

Elisabeth said, “No, that doesn’t mean anything to me. What else?”

Alice thought about the bouquets of pink balloons bobbing about in the gray sky, but she didn’t want to tell Elisabeth about that great tidal wave of grief that kept sweeping her away, and she wasn’t all that keen on finding out what it meant.

Instead she said, “I remember an American lady saying, ‘I’m sorry, but there is no heartbeat.’”

“Oh,” said Elisabeth.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Dr. Hodges I admit I found it oddly touching, flattering even, that of all the billions of memories significant enough to float to the surface of Alice’s mind, that was one of them.

Alice has always been good at imitating accents and she did that woman’s voice perfectly. The tone and the rhythm were exactly the way I remembered, and for a moment I was back there in that gloomy room, trying to understand. I haven’t thought about it in such a long time.

Imagine, Dr. Hodges, if I could travel back in time to that day and whisper in my ear, “This is only the beginning, honey.” Then I’d throw back my head and laugh a demented witchy laugh.

Actually you don’t really like it when I do that sort of black, bitter humor thing, do you? I’ve noticed that you smile politely and sort of sadly, as if I’m making a fool of myself and you know exactly why, as if I’m a teenager who isn’t in control of her own embarrassing emotions.