“Faked it,” says Suze succinctly. “Chucked it away when no one was looking. I knew if I was obvious about it, you’d guess.”

“Fair enough.” I nod. “Oh my God, Suze, four children.” I stare at her wonderingly. “Four.”

“I know.” She gulps.

“Or five, if you have twins. Or six if you have triplets—”

“Shut up!” says Suze, looking freaked out. “I won’t! Bex…” Her expression becomes agonized. “I wish…I wish you…I just wish—”

“I know,” I cut her off gently. “I know you do.”

“It doesn’t seem fair.” She swallows. “We didn’t even plan this. Total surprise.”

She gestures at her stomach, and deep inside I feel a little wrench of jealousy. I’d love a total surprise. To my horror, tears prick at my eyes, and I quickly turn away.

Anyway. It’s fine. We have Minnie and she’s perfect. She’s more than perfect. We don’t need anything else. I bend down to kiss the smooth two-year-old cheek that I love so much it hurts inside. And as I straighten up, I see Suze watching me with a shimmer in her own eyes.

“Stop it,” I say, swallowing hard. “Stop it. Look. OK. You can’t have everything. Can you?”

“No,” says Suze after a pause. “No, I suppose not.”

“You can’t have everything,” I repeat, as we resume walking. This is my favorite ever saying—in fact, I’ve got it on a fridge magnet. “You can’t have everything,” I emphasize. “Because where on earth would you put it?”

Suze gives a snort of laughter, and I can’t help grinning. She nudges me with her shoulder and I bash her back with my hand, and then she takes Minnie’s other hand and we start swinging her along the road, and Minnie exclaims, “Again! Again!” And just for a few minutes, all the angst and urgency dissipates into the sky. And we’re just two friends, walking along down a sunny street, swinging a little girl.

SIXTEEN

Tarkie has taken a conference room for our meeting, and he even negotiated a deal on it. He is so the man of the moment. We’ve all got pads of paper and our lucky mascot pencils and glasses of water, and I’ve already written Get Justice for Brent at the top of my pad and underlined it three times, which I think gives it purpose.

Suze and I are sitting next to each other, and we keep nudging each other and admiring our new cowboy boots. It was Suze who bought them. She practically manhandled me into the shop, and she said to the store owner, “We’re buying boots,” so firmly she almost sounded aggressive. And then we tried on nearly every pair, and God, it was fun.

I don’t know quite what happened to me before. How could I not want to buy cowboy boots? How could anyone not want to buy cowboy boots? I feel like a weird fog has lifted from my brain and I’m back to who I was.