being a famous married person, and shoved it into hyperdrive. Us reported my mother had been spied browsing the baby aisle at Target (she had been, for a friend’s granddaughter). Clive opined that Nick should make sure any child of my body was actually his, and Xandra Deane wrote that I was forcing Nick into fatherhood so he didn’t desert my faithless carcass (a paraphrase, but barely). Everyone else started analyzing my weight: whether I’d lost too much, or looked puffy, was too thin to get pregnant or less toned than what they considered my normal. Somehow, all those opinions existed at once. The womb-watch was officially on, and since I couldn’t wander out into the street and invite people to Instagram me demolishing a pile of soft cheeses, I had to shut up and deal.
“But whose baby will it be?” one contestant asked. She pointed at Nick’s photo. “Won’t be his. Not after she bonked his brother.”
“You can’t spell Lyons without lie,” said the comic, to great acclaim.
“You absolutely can. That is the only way to spell it,” I said to the TV. “That joke literally only works out loud.”
“Darling, switch to CNN or something,” Mom said, patiently brushing crimson polish onto her pointer fingernail and then holding it up to inspect her work. “It’s midnight somewhere.”
“It is about to be midnight in my Champagne glass.” I grabbed the bottle I’d brought and slowly turned the cork and held the bottle still. Or was I supposed to hold the cork and turn the bottle? One of them stopped the cork from—
Thunk. The cork shot out of the bottle and bounced off the monitor next to Eleanor’s bed before settling on the floor. The machine beeped an admonishment at me. Marta, asleep in a chair on the other side of Eleanor, woke with a start.
“What in the bloody hell,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said guiltily.
“Is that Marta? Are you having a nice night, Your Majesty?” Mom called out.
“Yes, it was a fright, and no, it wasn’t particularly nice,” Marta said hotly. She waved her cane toward Eleanor’s TV, which had been placed at the foot of her bed so that she and the nurses could entertain themselves. “Graham Norton, please,” she said. “He’s cheeky.”
“I texted Nick to tell him to have fun tonight, and he sent back clinking Champagne glasses and then googly eyes and the flexing arm.” I frowned, toying with the stem of my glass. “Does that mean anything or do we think he butt-emoji’d me?”
“You are asking the wrong person,” Mom said.
“It means he’s planning to drink his weight in bubbly,” Marta said at the same time. I hadn’t realized she was listening. She hadn’t even turned toward me when she spoke.
“I don’t know how we got to a place where I have to speak fluent emoji,” I grumbled.
“You were right to make him and Freddie talk it out,” Mom said. “None of those feelings were going to disappear on their own.”
“I guess so,” I said. “Not that it did any good. And now I feel like I went through an emotional wood chipper.”
“I should’ve flown over.”
“No, this is not how you want to ring in 2016,” I said. “I’m just wallowing.”
“Amen,” Marta said, still looking at the TV. “Oh, that Mark Wahlburger is hunky.”
Mom leaned in. “Did she say Mark Wahlberg looks funky?” she asked.
“He certainly does not look chunky,” Marta replied, offended.
“Can you guys both stay all night?” I asked. “This is better than any party.”
Well, other than the party Nick was at, which was apparently a soiree for the ages. Annabelle Farthing had told Country Life magazine that she was renowned for her New Year’s Eve bashes when they lived in Dubai and that she was looking forward to “taking the posh set by storm.” I was looking forward to Annabelle Farthing contracting norovirus and sending all her guests home. Not that Nick would necessarily choose to come back to ours.
“Why aren’t you celebrating with Cilla?” Mom wondered.
“She and Gaz got roped into attending her cousin’s silent retreat in Yorkshire.”
I must have looked sad, because Mom suddenly tsked at herself. “You are only pretending not to need me. I am your mother. I ought to have seen that.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
But I wasn’t. I’d insisted to everyone that a low-key New Year’s Eve at the Queen’s bedside was just what I needed. I’d ignored Cilla’s entreaties to join her in the countryside, and muted Bea’s phone calls; aside from one deranged moment in which I