“One of his people then . . . ,” Ted said.

He wouldn’t let it go.

Allison headed up the path to their door, prepared to find not only Jillian and Ted, but the Davenport-Gardner family, whom she had invited for dinner since their house was uninhabitable. Goodbye, Nick Cox, she thought. Goodbye, and good luck.

NINE O’CLOCK AND ALL WAS WELL. WELL, IT WASN’T PERFECT. ALLISON and Ted and the Davenport-Gardners sat in the living room after dinner, listening to Grant try to explain the house situation to Suzanne’s mother over the phone. Suzanne’s mother had, it seemed, bankrolled the house.

His voice was eerily calm, which lent an aura of surrealism to the situation. Everything about this first day of the new year was surrealistic, when you came down to it. Allison had just ended her affair with Nick—she’d had an affair. She wasn’t the type to have an affair—and their neighbors had destroyed their house and were homeless. It was a lot for one day.

“I’m not sure where we’re staying,” Grant told his mother-in-law.

It was a question that had been simmering in Allison’s mind.

“With you?” Grant said, his eyes on Suzanne.

Suzanne shook her head. “We can’t go to Richmond. You have a job.”

He put his palm over the speaker. “She wants Adam to come.”

“No way.” Suzanne shot Allison a desperate glance, but Allison looked down at her hands, dry from the winter weather. She was staying out of this one.

It wasn’t clear what Suzanne had against her mother. She was clearly devoted to Adam, reading aloud to him at every opportunity during her short holiday visit, giving him a haircut, and orchestrating Christmas dinner—each gesture of which inspired Suzanne to phone Allison, to vent. “She’s underfoot. Doesn’t she realize?”

The worst offense seemed to be her Christmas gift to Suzanne: an appointment for a ninety-minute massage at a spa in Georgetown, which she insisted Suzanne have before she went back to Richmond. While Suzanne was at the appointment, her mother not only wiped down every single one of Adam’s toys and cleaned the oven, but got Adam out of the pajamas and cap he’d worn for weeks and into some fresh clothes. Then she walked him to the playground, where she pushed him on the swings. He’d come home rosy cheeked. Suzanne had been apoplectic. “Wasn’t that going too far? He’s sick!” Suzanne asked her, a question to which Allison hadn’t responded. It might be good for him to stay with his grandmother for a while.