I was surprised: aside from the unexpectedness of the question itself, I didn’t think Caitlin’s existence had registered on Hanan.

“Well . . .” I said, warily, “she did continue working from home on other things . . .”

I’d learned from experience that some people regarded ­Caitlin’s decision to quit her career as an occasion to deliver a stern lecture—to Caitlin herself, or to me if she wasn’t around—and I didn’t want to hear one just then.

“Anyway, it wasn’t based on any particular belief about child rearing. It was just that she preferred being around the kids when they were growing up, and we were living a pretty frugal life out in the country, so we could afford it . . .”

Hanan nodded.

“How does she feel about it now?”

She tilted her smoothly angled face up toward me, closing her lips as she waited for my answer. Her interest, which seemed genuine, puzzled me.

“She fluctuates. Sometimes she regrets it. Sometimes not.”

“What are her main regrets?”

“Well, there’s a big void now that they’re gone, but she’s doing her best to fill it . . .”

It occurred to me, suddenly, why Hanan was asking.

“Hanan, are you thinking of, I mean—”

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

I tried not to appear too astonished. She laid her hand against her shoulder, her long red nails fanning out.

“It was an accident. But assuming I keep the child, I’d love to talk to your wife.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m sure she’d be happy to talk any time.”

She smiled, and turned back to the other people. I wandered off to get another drink, trying to sort through the many and somehow staggering surprises contained in Hanan’s words. How cosmically harmonious Marco’s household had become since I was last there! I supposed I was going to be adding the imminent patter of tiny feet to the list of things we’d be toasting with that bottle of Krug. The thought trailed a slight caustic burn in its wake. An irrational annoyance at Hanan’s questions seemed a part of it—as if she’d been trying to reduce Caitlin’s difficult process of figuring out full-time motherhood to some kind of lifestyle option one could simply select like a new car or fridge. But it was more than that. There was some animus against Marco, too. A resentment of his seeming invincibility; his amazing capacity for continually reviving and expanding his field of operations. And once again, as I saw this, I felt the dismaying pettiness of my reflexes. What was the matter with me, I wondered, that I could only fully sympathize with him when I thought he was on the ropes? Why did the prospect of Marco victorious, Marco the loved and honored paterfamilias with his troops of friends, his unstoppable career, fill me with such peevishness?

“There you are. You vanished!”