From the backseat, Alice watched Maggie and Richard. They were in love and very happy together, that much was obvious. And she tried to leave it at that. She wanted to leave it at that, almost more than anything she wanted to leave it at that, but she couldn’t. Her brain wouldn’t let her. And as they started down the crushed-shell road that led in and out of the club, it occurred to her for the first time to wonder when exactly her mom and Richard had become a couple. Before they said they had, obviously, that much was established, but how much before? It suddenly struck Alice that she’d focused solely on her dad as the betrayed party, had forgotten that Martha might have been betrayed as well. What was she saying? Might have been, was. Flashing back to the conversation she’d overheard in the hall that morning, Alice realized that Martha would’ve had to have still been in the picture when Maggie and Richard got involved. Otherwise why would Richard have told that Peter Cohen guy that Maggie was his sister when he ran into him at Christmas Stroll in Nantucket? If he was worried about protecting Maggie and her marriage, he could’ve just said she was his girlfriend then given her a fake name. Nothing wrong with a widower taking a consenting lady friend on a romantic getaway. But, no, he claimed she was a family member to explain why he was physically affectionate with her. Which means he was worried about protecting his own marriage as well. Which means there was a marriage to protect.

Which means Martha was alive at the time.

Alive—but sick with cancer. How sick would depend on which Christmas season Richard and Maggie had spent together in Nantucket. Best-case scenario it was three Christmases ago, when Martha was in remission. Worst-case scenario it was two Christmases ago, when Martha found out the cancer was back, and for the long haul. Thinking these thoughts, Alice was starting to feel a little sick herself. She looked out the window. As she did, she saw a sign for Serenity Point Hospital flash by. Another thing Cybill had said came back to her: Martha dying in the house mere days after she’d left the hospital where she’d been enjoying a period of recovery. How odd. And yet how fortunate for Richard. With his first wife dead and gone, he got everything—the woman he loved, the daughter he adored (no way could he have predicted that her mother’s death would drive Camilla to suicide), the houses, the money, and all without scandal or a negative impact on his big-time career. No muss, no fuss. So convenient.