Alice got up and walked inside, and I knew I was supposed to follow her, so I did. She walked up the cream-carpeted stairs, and I couldn’t help but wonder whose job it was to keep those clean while I looked at the eclectic art lining the stairwell. She took a right at the upper landing into a bedroom with a charming pair of twin beds and a dresser made entirely of light-colored shells. The walls were covered in a pale-blue bamboo wallpaper. Then she led me through a bathroom with double sinks—the countertops had bits of oystershell embedded—and marble mosaic tile floors, a huge soaking tub, and a separate glass shower, into another bedroom with a king bed. I couldn’t even take in how lovely it was because, right in front of me, outside the wall of windows with one door in the center that led to a porch, was an expansive view of the ocean, which was very calm today, retreating and then returning to the sand. Shorebirds flitted to the water’s edge and, as the waves came in, pranced toward the beach again, which was full of umbrellas and intact families eating sandwiches and building sandcastles.

A sob I didn’t even realize was building burst out of me. The last few days hadn’t even felt real, and my sole focus had been trying to get in touch with my lawyer, trying to keep a roof over my daughter’s head, trying to figure out what to do until—God willing—some court somewhere had mercy on me and released our money. Our clothes. Our house. Something. I hadn’t even had a moment to realize that the family Bill and I had created was gone. That the man who swept me off my feet, and spent sixteen years doting on me, had lied to me the entire time. Hadn’t he? Alice pulled me to her as I cried. “Things are very bad right now, and that’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay to let them be bad.”

She stroked my hair, and it occurred to me that, of all the women in the world, she should have been a mother. She was so soothing. Her house was a magical oasis of beauty, and her light shone over all of it. I finally composed myself enough to pull away from her. I wiped my eyes. “I’m so sorry,” I said.

“You aren’t the one who should be sorry.”

“Wow. Tantrum in the bank, sobbing in a stranger’s house. Is this what a complete nervous breakdown feels like?”

“You haven’t shaved your head yet, so I think you’re still on the right side of the line.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “I suspect my marriage is over,” I said. “My family is over.”

“You don’t know that,” Alice said. “Have you even talked to Bill? Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding.”