Ivy shut her eyes and touched a hand to her mouth. When she spoke again, her tone was apologetic. “I know, that came out terribly. Yes, we’re all friends. You know how it is with a group of women. Not everyone loves everyone else to the nth degree. We all tolerate Filly because Sutton seems to have a real connection to her. Filly isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. I never really understood why Sutton let her hang around. That’s not true. It was the baby.

“But once Dashiell died, they really had nothing in common anymore. The rest of us don’t have small kids—though Rachel and Susannah are trying to get pregnant, but they wouldn’t tell Sutton that. Why hurt her? Ellen’s kids are older, in college. Filly was the one with the step-by-step instructions. That woman is a walking What to Expect When You’re Expecting encyclopedia.” She gave a delicate little shudder. “The things they’d talk about, put you right off your coffee. Sorry. You have children?”

“No. Talk to me about the baby for a minute.”

Ivy closed her eyes again, as if remembering. “He was such a cute kid. Of course they blamed each other. The finding was SIDS, but what is that, really? The baby stopped breathing, for some unknown reason. They found him on his stomach, that I do know.”

“They found him? They were together?”

“No. Sutton...Sutton found him. Ethan, well, he blamed her. She wasn’t supposed to put the baby down on his stomach.”

“He was old enough to roll over, right?”

“I guess. I don’t really know the milestones. No, Sutton put him down, and a few hours later he was dead. Ethan will never not blame her. Even if it was an accident.”

“You don’t think it was intentional, do you?”

Ivy’s eyes were clear chips of ice blue. “Did Ethan tell you the story? About how they got pregnant?”

“No. Did they have difficulties?”

“You could say that. Sutton didn’t want to have children. Ever. She wasn’t the mother type.”

“It was an accident?”

“I guess you could call it that. Ethan switched out her birth control pills. He didn’t tell her until after she had the baby. And she hated him for it.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. She felt raped. Completely violated. You know, in the beginning, she wanted to abort, but I talked her out of it.”

“Why?”

Ivy sighed. “She didn’t want to be a mother. Didn’t want to have a child. Everyone supported her in that, except for me. I was the only one who thought she should keep the baby. Everyone else wanted her to get rid of it. But I knew that would put a fork in their marriage, once and for all. They belong together, Ethan and Sutton. They complete each other. They just don’t always know it.”

“So they fought?”