“I think there’s a conversation you and I need to have, honey,” she said. “Can you come home?”

“Is Dad there?” said Lulu.

“I’ve sent him out with Phil,” said Fee. “Unless you want him to be here, in which case he’ll come home directly.”

“God, no,” said Lulu.

“Everything’s fine, sweetie,” said Fee. “We still love each other, and it’s going to be okay.”

“It doesn’t feel fine,” said Lulu.

“Just come home,” said Fee. “We’ll talk about it then.”

“Thank you for not telling your sisters about this,” Fee said, when they were sitting at the kitchen table, a pot of tea between them. She looked tired, and lines seemed overnight to have sprung up around her eyes and mouth. “Your father and I appreciate it greatly.”

“Your father and I.” How many countless times, thought Lulu, had she heard the phrase from her mother’s mouth; and how impossibly luxurious had been the days when it had not occurred to her to question it.

“Has he been unfaithful?” she said.

“That’s a complicated question,” said Fee. “And not one I’d ever hoped to be having to answer to any of my daughters. But … he hasn’t been physically unfaithful, no. I’m not going to go into details of the precise way in which he’s screwed up because that’s between him and me, but he hasn’t actually been physically unfaithful.”

“Is he going to be?” said Lulu.

“I’m pretty sure not,” said Fee. “He says he won’t—he’s been told pretty plainly by me that if he does sleep with Jane, or with any other woman come to that, then our marriage is over, and he says he wants us to work on getting it back, which is a huge relief to me. But you can’t be certain of anything about another human being, Lulu, as I’m learning to my cost.” She stopped and sighed. “I’d kill for a cigarette,” she muttered. “Lulu, I don’t have all the answers, honey. I sometimes think you girls think I do, and to tell you the truth, I sometimes like to make out that I do because it feeds my ego. And to tell you another truth, I sometimes get so into myself that I even believe I have the answers, too, but the fact is that I don’t. I will say that, number one, your parents will always love you and that’s something that will never change, and number two, it seems you’ve already figured out that your father and I have found ourselves in an unfortunate place that we need to work our way back from. But that means both of us working, not just him, because I’ve messed up here, too, in my own way, almost as much as he has.”

“I don’t see how,” said Lulu.

“Probably not,” said Fee. “But, take my word for it, I have. Lulu, you’ve stumbled on a situation here that is much more grown-up and complex than I’d have chosen for you to be exposed to at this stage of your life. But I didn’t raise stupid daughters, and particularly not my middle one, and since you obviously have found out—damn your inconvenient sharp eyes and ears—something about what’s going on, I’d like to try to begin to explain it to you by telling you a story. Can I do that, please?”