“Okay.” She didn’t look convinced, as though the role of hostess was still tempting her. I knew how easy it could be to escape into the rote lines—won’t you have some coffee, have you seen the new construction, are you going to book club later. But something was wrong, wrong enough for Elizabeth to need my help.

“Sit down,” I said more firmly, and she finally did, perching gingerly on the far end of the sofa. It was the kind of sofa you sank into, an expanse of cushy leather, but Elizabeth sat bolt upright as if she were in a straight-backed wooden chair. “What’s wrong?”

She darted a glance at me, and whatever she saw in my face must have reassured her. “Wyatt and I, I mean, we’ve been trying for about a year. And it hasn’t worked. It did, almost, once, but then—” She opened her hands as if the almost-baby was slipping through them, and when she looked back at me, her eyes shone with gathering tears. “And then two weeks ago, I took the test, and it was positive.” Her voice lowered on the last word, as if even saying it aloud might jinx it.

“That’s great.” I kept my tone cautious, because she didn’t look great. Now that we were sitting down and I could study her, I could see a chalky-green tinge under her skin.

She nodded, looking down at her hands, clenching and unclenching them in her lap. “I’m bleeding.” The words were so soft I almost didn’t understand, and I leaned in closer.

“Have you called your doctor?”

She nodded, but she still didn’t look up.

I reached out, touching her arm. “What do you need?”

Her restless hands stilled; then she turned one up to take mine, clinging to it. She faced me, tears overspilling now, wetting her cheeks. But she was so composed, so still. If not for the shiny tears and the tightness with which she held my hand, I wouldn’t have known how afraid she was. “He said not to come in. He said—” She took a deep breath. “He said it might be normal, but if it wasn’t, there wasn’t anything he could do.”

Before I had a chance to think, I’d pulled her close, and she was crying now, really crying, on my shoulder, while I whispered comforting but meaningless phrases. My mind kept working. I didn’t know anything about this, didn’t have any experience, but I hated the doctor who’d told her to wait and see. What kind of shit advice was that? And I hated myself a little, too, for taking Elizabeth at face value.

If anyone should have understood the difference between the way someone looks and the way they feel, it should have been me.