THE END played across the screen.

  Margaret found the three-ring binder and opened it. Colorful tabs separated sections labeled, “Henry,” “Tessa” and “Appearances.”

  In the Henry section, words in a large typeface explained: Our lawyer arranged a private, closed adoption. You’d always wanted children, and I was excited to have a child with you as well. We put in for adoption about six months before your issues began again. The lawyer warned us when we applied that we could have a baby the very next day or that it could be a couple of years—it just depended. When we finally got the call, you’d already started to backslide, and I hoped (everyone hoped) that maybe if you had a baby to hold and to love, it would help. The truth is that you’re great with him. You love him, and he loves you. He’s definitely made you calmer.

  Margaret read the next page and surveyed the ensuing pages of photos.

  The section labeled, “Tessa,” followed a similar pattern with an explanation and pictures. The large typeface said: We originally met at Katharine’s wedding reception. I approached you and your mother outside, and we all made conversation for a while. Later, Emma and I had breakfast with you and your mother. Emma and I dated for a few days, nothing serious, and she’s cool with us together. A while after that, you decided you needed some time away from your family to find yourself, and you went to New York. You didn’t know many people there and sought me out.

  At this point, Tessa switched to mostly photos with captions to explain the progression of their relationship. Still, it was a lot of information. Margaret focused on the images in which she and this woman she barely knew seemed so happy. The last page in that section featured a small photo of someone called Adam and typeface explaining, You broke up with Adam in NYC (before we got together!). It was the last time of many, and he still works at the laundromat and funfair.

  In the “Appearances” section, there was no explanatory text, only pictures with captions. Margaret had been busy up until a year ago. Her and Tessa both. Giving out awards, cutting ribbons, giving speeches, receiving recognition of their own for their work with abused women, children and pets.

  Questions burned inside Margaret. She saw her cane leaning against the couch. She grabbed it, went to the front door of the “flat” and opened it. She stepped outside and looked to her right and to her left. The corridor that she had walked up and down countless times greeted her, as did a cleaner carrying a mop. She bowed her head and said, “Ma’am.”

  Margaret wasn’t sure what to do, where to go. Where was Tessa, and when would she be back?

  “Mum!” Margaret cried, seeing Amalia approaching from way down the left side of the corridor. She’d never been happier to see her mother, and she fumbled forth with the cane to meet her.

  “Darling,” Amalia said. “How are you feeling?” Code for, How’s the ol’ noggin today?

  “I’m good, Mum.” I’m married to a woman. Can you believe it?

  Amalia smiled kindly, perhaps sensing Margaret’s thoughts. “Are you looking for Tessa?”

  “Yes.”

  “She must be in the nursery. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Margaret steadied Amalia’s arm. “Wait, Mum. Is she really my wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “You love each other.”

  “But Mum, I don’t remember. I don’t feel it.”

  Amalia sighed. “I know, and she knows as well. It’s hard for her.”

  “It’s hard for me too!”

  “I’m sure. I didn’t mean to imply it wasn’t. It’s just that…this is her life now and has been for too many months. Most days, she has to deal with a wife who doesn’t remember her.”

  “How long since Katharine made the DVD?”

  “Two months. You started the new medication then too.”

  “Oh.”

  “Tessa loves you,” Amalia said. “And you love her.”

  “I can’t believe I married a woman. Were you okay with that?”

  “Tessa’s my favorite,” Amalia said. “Of her, Veronica and Cheryl.”

  Margaret snorted. “Oh, Mum. I bet you tell Veronica and Cheryl that they’re your favorite.”

  Amalia winked. “Maybe. I was happy for you to marry her. She’s special. I’m long over…” She flapped her hand. “Caring what people think. Life’s too short for that. Now come on, quit stalling.”

  Amalia led Margaret to a door that was one down from Tessa’s fake flat. It stood slightly ajar, and Amalia rapped a couple of times before entering.

  Tessa looked up. She kneeled on the floor blowing bubbles, and baby Henry giggled and waved his hands in the air trying to pop them.

  “How old is he?” Margaret asked.

  “Six months,” Amalia said. “Have a good evening, girls.” She left quietly.

  Tessa held out the bottle of bubbles. “Want to play?”

  By no means was she the future Margaret had envisioned, but she was here. Margaret used the cane to lower herself to the floor. Henry said, “Ma ba ca,” and Margaret said, “Hey, kid.” She lifted him into her lap and pressed her forehead to his. She breathed in his baby smell.

  Her wife. Her son. The medication, whatever it was, needed to kick in soon because Margaret felt nothing for her wife and child, and she desperately wanted to.

  Chapter Eight

  A few moments after Margaret linked back up with Tessa and Henry, Tessa rose from the floor and said, “Ah, so we kind of have plans tonight. There’s a reception.”

  “Oh.”

  “Treadie got married today, and we’re invited to the reception. All of us—Katharine, et cetera. He’s—”

  “I know who he is,” Margaret said more hotly than necessary. She remembered Katharine flying over from Purcell to visit soon after Margaret began to recover and telling her about Treadie, the hot dark-haired basketball player who stole her heart.

  Margaret had believed her sister and been so happy for her. Then Katharine came out and ran off with Veronica. She returned to Purcell in the spring and continued to make the gossip magazines with Treadie despite the two of them having been broken up.

  “I wasn’t going to tell you who he was,” Tessa said gently. “I know you remember.” She had the way of a patient nursemaid about her, the way of a woman who knew she could easily get her feathers ruffled but who chose to remain above the fray. “What I was going to say is that he’ll be really excited if you come, but he’ll understand if you don’t show up.”

  “Why does he care? Katharine’s his friend. I’m not.”

  “You’re his friend too,” Tessa said. “He was a huge help getting you settled in New York. He was living there and working for his father’s corporation. He’s the one who walked you down the aisle at our wedding. He gave you away, Margaret.”

  “Oh.” Margaret ignored the fact that Treadie giving her away made no sense at all. Heck, when Katharine and Emma got married, their cousin Edward, Aunt Josephine’s eldest son, gave them away. Instead, Margaret focused on something more manageable. “You said we didn’t have plans tonight and that you were open to anything.”

  “Because I was going along with your reality and seeing if you would remember—”

  My reality. Great. “I’ll go,” Margaret interrupted. She didn’t want to. Really, she wanted to turn back from where she came, find her mother and beg for reassurance that she would be okay.

  She hated how her wife looked at her, Tessa with her distant, businesslike expression. Oh, it must be horrible to be married to Margaret.

  “You don’t have to,” Tessa said. “Treadie will understand.”

  “I said I’m going.”

  A matronly woman entered the nursery and bowed her head. “How’s Henry?” she asked, looking directly at Tessa and ignoring Margaret as if she were furniture.

  “Good.” Margaret jumped in before Tessa could. “Our son had fun trying to pop bubbles.”

  “Oh, did he, ma’am? Lovely.”

  **

  Margaret followed Tessa across the hall to a sunny suite of rooms, the walls painted in cheerful yellow, purple and lime green. Clothes were laid out on the bed, and Margaret took in the bedroom, loving it. She didn’t recognize it, and it certainly didn’t appear “palacial” or whatever the word was. It was one hundred percent modern, not stern, no trace of antique furniture.

  “Why would waking up here upset me?” she mused.

  Tessa shrugged and held up her pantsuit for inspection. “Who knows? One of life’s mysteries.”

  Her tone sounded flippant, and Margaret bit back a retort.

  Tessa lifted her shirt over her head to reveal a sleek black bra. She undid it, and it fluttered to the floor.

  Supple breasts with brown nipples…but Margaret felt nothing. “I am trying to understand how I got from Point A to Point Z. Do I like women now? Am I gay?” She replayed Alec shirtless, Alec raking his hand through his luxurious hair, and now she remembered Adam with his jawbones and soft eyes. Then she looked at Tessa, who was beautiful and her wife but unquestionably a woman.

  Tessa bit her lip. “You love me, but I don’t think you identify as gay. Maybe bisexual at the most. We never really got into that whole identity thing. It didn’t come up. You and I, we just were.” She took a deep breath. “Can I ask you a favor, Margaret?”

  “Okay.”

  “You look at me most days looking like I repulse you, like you’d rather be anyone’s wife but mine, and I work so hard. I’ve really been looking forward to tonight and to a night out. I don’t want to have to answer questions later in the week from other people about the state of our marriage or why you were weird or stiff around me.”

  “What’s the favor?”

  “Can you pretend that you tolerate me?”

  “I do tolerate you. You’re easy on the eyes. You seem nice.”

  “Not helping.”

  “Were you hoping to go without me tonight?”

  “No,” Tessa said, but the flicker in her eyes signaled otherwise.

  “How did we end up together?”

  “We became friends very quickly. We knew early on that what we had was special, and I helped you stay in New York.”

  “What was the proposal like? Who proposed?”

  “Did you read the info in the binder?”

  “Some of it. It was a lot.”

  “Okay,” Tessa said. “Well, getting married was your idea.”

  “Oh.” Margaret couldn’t imagine that, but there it was.

  “I’d like to leave soon. I’ve been looking forward to going out tonight.”

  “This is hard for you.”

  “Yes. It’s very hard.” Tessa exhaled. “Look at the time. Can we finish this discussion later?”

  “Sure. It’s not like I’m going to remember anyway.”

  **

  They got dressed in separate rooms. Two women came in to do their hair and makeup, and then Margaret and Tessa walked down the corridor to a side door where a black town car waited. “Are we riding with the others?” Margaret asked.

  “No. We don’t ride together to things like that. Um, by the way, Cheryl and Emma live in Windsor now.”

  “Oh. Oh, okay.”

  They got into the car, and Margaret buckled in. She leaned back and closed her eyes. A few minutes later, she opened them, noticed the sound barrier separating the front and back seats, and asked, “Who knows about my memory issues?”

  “The family does,” Tessa explained. “Treadie does somewhat. The public doesn’t. Luckily, most of the people at the party tonight, you’ll never have met. Getting by should be fairly easy. I’ll stay with you to help. We had an appearance last week, and it went well.”

  “Where?”

  “We went to a theatre where we met actors with various disabilities.” Tessa pursed her lips thoughtfully, and her hand scratched at her neck. “Somehow, we make it work. The public doesn’t know what’s happening. It’s what you wanted.”

  “Yes! Yes, it’s what I want.” Goodness, could you imagine how humiliating it would be for the public, the world, to know that Margaret’s wedge of Swiss cheese still contained too much hole?

  “Was I normal before I started going bad again?”

  “Basically, yes. After you came to New York and found me and got some time away from your family and dealt with what happened to your father, it was like you became a new person.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He died.”

  “I know, but you make it sound like there’s more to it.”

  “Oh. No, but you struggled with it at times.”

  “I’m sorry I backslid.”

  “It’s not your fault. None of this is.”

  “Do you hate me?”

  “No,” Tessa said quietly. “I could never hate you.”

  “You have my sisters and sisters-in-law to help tonight. Take the night off from babysitting.”

  Tessa sighed. “I’m sure they’ll be with you some, but it doesn’t work like that.”

  “Why?”

  “It just doesn’t. We’re married. They have their own lives, and so do we.”

  **

  To Margaret, a wedding reception meant a degree of formality, a degree of stiltedness. The only ones she remembered attending were in girlhood, and they’d been boring affairs. She was always glad to leave.

  Treadie’s reception, she learnt very quickly, was different. For one thing, the waiters were men dressed in leather chaps and other items that Margaret forgot the names to. Many exposed more skin than they covered.

  “Ohh,” Margaret said, taking in the scene of the leather-clad men. “Are Treadie’s parents here? His poor parents!”

  “No, actually, they cut him off after he came out. They want nothing to do with him.”

  Margaret’s heart squeezed. “But…it’s a different time. Lots more people are gay.” She narrowed her eyes at Tessa as if that would shake sense into her, and she’d magically conjure Treadie’s accepting parents.

  “It still doesn’t work out for everyone,” Tessa said.

  “What about the other groom’s parents? Are they involved?”

  “Yes.”

  “And are they here?” She imagined a middle-aged couple, a man and a woman both thick around the middle, staring befuddled at the scene—much like Margaret was, and then saying about their son and Treadie, “Such interesting boys.”

  “I assume so. They’re extremely liberal,” Tessa said. “Hell, that looks like them.” She indicated an older man and woman wearing dog collars. The woman led the man by a leash.

  “We didn’t go to the wedding?”

  “No.”

  “Because of me? Because I was asleep?”

  “We both needed to rest,” Tessa said kindly.

  A pair of stone boulders appeared. “Your Royal Highness,” Boulder A said, bowing at Margaret. Then at Tessa: “Your Royal Highness. Your phones, please.” He held out meaty hands.

  “We didn’t bring them,” Tessa said.

  Boulder B looked them over and apparently concluded that any bulges in their clothes must be natural.

  “Have a good evening, ladies,” they said and walked off.

  “What if we want to check on Henry?” Margaret wondered.

  “We can. Our guards are here. They stay back along the walls. They’re allowed to have phones.”

  Many more questions. Zillions of questions but no time.

  “Do you want to check on him?” Tessa asked.

  It was an overwhelming, sprawling scene, people massed everywhere as far as Margaret could see. “Yes,” Margaret said. Just to put off socializing a bit, plus she did already kind of miss the baby she barely knew.

  Tessa took her hand and led her a few steps away. Them touching, the feel of her hand in Tessa’s, it didn’t do anything.

  “Phil,” Tessa said to a black-suited man who appeared ill at ease. “We’d like to check on the baby.”

  Phil handed them a phone.

  “This is the app we use to keep track of him,” Tessa said, showing Margaret a pink square on the phone. She pressed it, and a live video feed filled the screen. “Looks like he’s sleeping well.”

  Margaret held the phone and gazed at the feed coming from the dark room at Kensington, at the child who had become her son fast asleep.

  “Press the ‘L’ in the corner,” Tessa said, and Margaret did.

  “It’s a log of his activities,” Tessa explained, but Margaret could have figured that out for herself. She saw times for bottle feedings, diaper changes, whether they were wet or dirty, et cetera.

  Margaret handed the phone back to John. No. Phil. Again, so many questions, but Margaret nodded her thanks and accepted that she could either hammer Tessa with questions or go ahead and live more of her life.

  **

  A man and a woman held court in the middle of the dance floor, he dark-haired, tall and muscular, she slim and light-haired, and they twirled and sashayed and he picked her up and lifted her and the crowd went, “Ooooh.” The woman wore a skirt that flew up every time she twirled and that revealed shorts and toned legs.

  Margaret and Tessa stood at the back of the crowd, and Margaret craned her neck to see better. The dancers had a tad of an amateur air about them, but they were good enough to captivate her, and apparently, hundreds of others.

  “Who are they?” Margaret asked.

  “He’s Treadie.”

  “No way. Wow.” Margaret squinted at the woman, who stirred feelings of— “It’s Katharine!” she exclaimed. “That’s my sister!”

  Tessa smiled at Margaret’s reaction. It may have been the first big, genuine smile from her since Margaret woke up, and Margaret liked it, her pink lips, her pretty white teeth.