There is a knock at the door. Cate stays where she is, but the knock comes again, imperious this time, and then the sound of a key turning in the lock. Horrified, she goes out into the hall where she sees Alice coming through the door.

“I thought you might need a hand.” Sam’s mother is brisk, dressed in a scarf and padded vest, her cheeks rosy. A bulging bag stands at her feet. “So I brought some help.” She lifts the bag, which is bristling with awful plastic bottles. “Shall I come in?”

Cate steps back as Alice passes her into the kitchen. The pills are still on the table, next to the computer, open to a series of photographs of women’s faces. Cate moves, putting herself between the table and Alice, her heart beating wildly.

“Still haven’t unpacked those?” Alice takes off her vest and hangs it on the back of a chair, then points to the tower of boxes behind the door.

“Not yet. I mean—I’ve been waiting to borrow a car, for a secondhand store run.”

“You can borrow Terry’s,” says Alice, taking a crisp, ironed apron from the bag and tying it around her waist. She lifts bottles from the bag. “I thought we could tackle the kitchen and bathrooms then go for a bit of tea and cake. Get you both out of the house.”

Cate eyes the bottles. Alice’s cleaning cupboard is a temple to carcinogens in all their many varieties. “Oh, well, that’s nice of you, Alice.” She turns around, gathers her computer and the pills, and brings them all into the safety of her sweater. “The thing is . . .”

“Yes?”

“I’m actually just heading out.”

“Out?” Alice’s head is cocked; she appears to be sniffing the air for untruths.

“Yes. To playgroup.”

“Playgroup?”

“The one you recommended.” Cate nods at the flyer on the fridge. “I’ve just been waiting for Tom to wake up. I’m just going to check on him now. Excuse me a sec.”

She races upstairs to the bedroom where Tom is fast asleep, his arms flung out at right angles on the comforter. She shoves the pill back in the packet, puts the packet back in the paper bag, and the bag at the very back of the bathroom cupboard, covered with a towel. Scrubs her face with a flannel, goes back to the bedroom, pulls a sweater over Tom’s onesie, pulls on the sling and maneuvers him swiftly into it, then makes her way downstairs as he begins to properly stir.

“There we are,” she says, snatching the playgroup flyer from the fridge and one of the space food packets from the cupboard. “I’m really sorry to miss you, Alice. And I’m so grateful for your help.”

Alice stands in the middle of the room. “Well, all right then. But don’t forget Tuesday.”

“Tuesday?”