“He’s in the office, working. Too riled up to sleep, he said.”

Alice nodded, slowly walking up to the bed, sitting at the foot of it. She looked at Maggie. Her mother was wearing reading glasses Alice recognized but a nightgown that was new. The near black hair pressed against the pillow was familiar, but the style it was cut in wasn’t. It was like the woman in front of her was her mother and a stranger at the same time.

“Riled up?” Alice said. “You mean mad at me?”

Maggie dog-eared the page she was on, placed the book on the side table. “He’s not mad at you, sweetheart. More hurt. So am I, for that matter. You want to tell me what’s going on with you?”

Alice took a deep breath, told her. Not all of it, nothing about Tommy or her worries about Charlie and Jude.

Everything, though, about Richard.

At the end, she cast an anxious glance at Maggie’s face. The expression on it was suspended somewhere between shock and amusement. “You thought Richard murdered Martha?” Maggie said. “That he was some kind of Bluebeard?” She started laughing.

Annoyed at her mother’s lightheartedness, she said, “Some kind of what beard?”

“Never mind. Oh, honey, he can’t even flush a spider down the toilet, he makes me do it for him. Though I am flattered that you thought someone would kill for me.”

Alice shrugged, looked down. “But the rest of it’s true, right?” she said, picking at a loose thread on the bedspread. “You two were involved while you were still married to dad?”

Her mom’s voice got serious. “I wish I could tell you it wasn’t, that we waited, got together in a wholly honorable way, but sometimes feelings are stronger than honor. You’ll find that out as you get older. I’m sorry for what I did to your dad, hurting him. He was a good husband and a good father, but it was just never there between us. Not on my side, at least.”

Alice waited for her mother to say more. But she didn’t, just looked at Alice, her gaze candid and clear. A feeling of disappointment, obscure but somehow acute at the same time, descended on Alice. Trying to shake it off, she stood, moved up the bed. She sat beside Maggie so that her head rested on Maggie’s shoulder. Maggie’s hand lifted automatically, began stroking her hair. She knew, though, from Maggie’s touch that if she hadn’t pushed herself on her, Maggie would never have taken her in her arms.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Maggie said, “Martha was in remission when Richard’s and my affair started.”

“It does, actually,” Alice said, with a small smile.

“I’m glad.”