“Did you ever consider not having her? Leda, that is,” Kiki corrected, reddening. “You know what I mean.”

“You mean did I think about getting an abortion when I was twenty-three? Yes. I did.” Sarah didn’t look at Matthew. It had been so long since she’d thought about any of this; Kiki had never before asked, so Sarah felt she should answer honestly, in the spirit of their friendship. “Matthew was still Catholic then.”

“And I loved her,” he said. “And she loved me. There was that part, too.”

“There was.” Sarah nodded, chastened, smiling at him.

She could see a thought pass across Matthew’s face. It settled over his deep-set dark eyes and olive skin, full lips, and reddish stubble. She pictured that pale gray wall in their old apartment at the end of an ordinary day; how quickly a shadow can consume the brightest room. She dug her fingernail into the rough wooden table. The windows reflected rich colors all around them. No Benjamin Moore Calm here. No Dew, Solitude, or Dawn. The water was boiling and Kiki put in the pasta, gave the sauce a stir.

“Was it hard on you?” Sarah asked. “Trying to get pregnant?”

Kiki tasted the sauce and took her time swallowing; she sloshed beer back and forth in the bottle. “Yeah.”

This was as far as the conversation would go. Kiki was up for talking about her ovaries and her deep ambivalence about motherhood and how many years earlier (it was a different life for Kiki, too, Sarah reminded herself) she hadn’t wanted any part of it, but she clearly had no interest in talking about what followed. What changes of heart and mysterious forces led her to this moment: listening to a baby monitor in upstate New York with two people she used to know well and who now might as well have been strangers.

Kiki’s current friends were outside. It seemed more and more likely that she’d asked them to stay so as not to be alone with Sarah and Matthew. Kiki might not have originally invited them to spend the night, but—especially with Arman in the city—she’d wanted a buffer.

“Well, she’s here. Your baby.” Matthew raised his glass. “And you got a girl. Lucky you.”

“Lucky me.” Kiki nodded with a smile so radiant Sarah was surprised there weren’t tears.

Out the window Sarah saw a flash of fire. She caught her breath before realizing it was only the charcoal grill.

WHEN THE KIDS had finished eating and were set up with a movie, and the outside table was cleared and reset, and when a bottle of rosé was poured and two more plunged into a tub of ice, Karim raised his glass. “To Kiki.”

“Hear hear,” Sarah said.