“Then she should be ashamed of herself,” said Fee. “And if she pulls anything like that in our house, I’ve more than half a mind to tell her so.”

“Mom!” Emma’s heart sank further. There was a certain sort of Englishwoman with whom Fee had never learned to have patience: Emma wondered now how she could have failed to see before precisely how squarely into the category her future mother-in-law fell. “You wouldn’t really, would you?”

“Why not?” Fee set her jaw, and Emma noticed despairingly that her Boston accent had suddenly grown more pronounced. “If one of my guests is being unpleasant to another under my roof, I think I’m allowed to comment.”

“Cool!” said Sophie, her attention diverted at last from the puzzle. “Family drama, I love it. I’m going to stand in the hall, selling T-shirts, Team Caroline and Team Andrew.”

“I’ll bring some mascots from the shop,” said Lulu. “A big teddy bear for Andrew, and what do you think for Caroline? A tarantula, or maybe a nice slithery snake?”

“We can make it an event. The Battle of the Exes, the fight of the year.”

“Sell tickets to help pay for the honeymoon. I could sell loads at work; kids love a bit of violence.”

“Will you two shut up!” said Emma. “This isn’t a joke, you know, it’s serious.”

“Sorry,” said Lulu. “Just trying to help you out with your wedding costs, weren’t we, Soph?”

Sophie shrugged. “There’s no pleasing some people,” she observed.

“I wouldn’t worry too much, honey,” said Fee. “I’m sure it’ll all be fine. These things have a way of working themselves out.”

With some people they did, thought Emma. With Caroline, she was not so sure.

“If you tell her Dad’ll be there,” said Matthew later on that evening, “she’ll think you’re asking her not to go.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Emma. “Of course I want her to go. I just feel I should warn her that he’ll be there, too, so that she can prepare herself. I wouldn’t want to walk into a room and meet my ex-husband unexpectedly. Not that I’m planning to have one, by the way.”

“I know why you want to warn her,” said Matthew. “Any normal person would understand that. But I also know how Mum’s mind works. Which is that if she knows Dad will be there, she won’t want to go. And because she knows that everyone knows that, she’ll blame the person who told her because she’ll think they were telling her in order to keep her away, because that’s the way she’d behave herself in that situation. That’s why I’m recommending not telling her. I’d frankly rather face the atmosphere on that evening and just deal with it, than live with weeks and months of recriminations for having tried to warn her.”

“But this is terrible,” said Emma. “Either we warn her and get blamed, or we don’t warn her, which feels just wrong. It’s an impossible situation.”

“Welcome to Mum,” said Matthew. “I love her, but I didn’t choose her. And you’ll notice I’m not rushing to marry someone like her, either.”