It was early July when we began to notice that Alexa’s interest in the Griffins had become, well, for lack of a better word, surprising. One of us saw her leaving their house on Olive Street on a Monday evening. Another one of us, getting cones with her daughter and a friend at the Cottage during Alexa’s afternoon shift, heard her tell her coworker, a standout on the Pingree girls’ lacrosse team named Hannah, that she was babysitting the following evening as a favor to her mother’s friend. Gina reported it to a few of us via text, but not on the main text. A subtext, if you will. Tension between Gina and Rebecca had been high since the sleeping bag incident of 2019. Like we’ve told you, we have no idea how that story got out. And even if a couple of the moms knew, we never told our children. We thought maybe Rebecca was holding the whole thing needlessly against Gina. Not that we blamed her! She was grieving!

(Some of us still wondered. What was Rebecca doing with her summer? Except for that ill-fated pontoon ride, we’d hardly seen her.)

To the text about the babysitting we sent back various bewildered emojis. We thought, babysitting? Our children had finally reached the age where babysitters were unnecessary, unless we had younger siblings to consider, which the Griffins did not. Or unless we were going into Boston or Portland, or unless we were going to be out very, very late—for the famous/infamous Dalton Club Christmas party, for example. But surely Katie Griffin was old enough to stay by herself during the day or into the early evening. Surely she didn’t need a babysitter.

It was Esther who first posited that maybe something else was going on.

After that, we couldn’t help but wonder, every one of us.

We mean, Alexa Thornhill was a big deal. Her Silk Stockings account was verified on Instagram.

If Alexa Thornhill had some reason to hang around with Sherri and Katie Griffin, were we missing something? And if so, what was it?

We swear Nicole wasn’t thinking about any of this when she sent out the evite to Riley’s Boda Borg birthday party. If you don’t know, Boda Borg is a real-world gaming environment where you divide into teams and go through these “quests” with challenges both mental and physical. You’ve never done it? You should. You totally should. It’s really a good time. It’s in Malden, sort of a haul from us, but worth it. They don’t say this on the Web site, but a shot of tequila really makes the experience sing.