What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

that it was an excellent match. Well done, whoever you are.
    The other piece of jewelry was Alice’s gold Tiffany charm bracelet.
    Alice said, “Fancy meeting you here.” She picked up the bracelet and laid it across her wrist and felt comforted, as if Nick had finally arrived.
    Nick had bought this bracelet for her the day after they found out she was pregnant with the Sultana. He shouldn’t have spent that much because they were experiencing what Nick called “severe fiscal stress,” due to the fact that every single thing they did to the house ended up costing more than planned, but Nick said it could go on the balance sheet under “extraordinary items” (whatever that meant) because it was extraordinary that they were having a baby.
    The Sultana had been conceived on a Wednesday night, which just didn’t seem exciting enough a night for such a momentous event, and the sex hadn’t even been that passionate or romantic. It was just that there had been nothing much on TV and Nick had yawned and said, “We should paint the hallway,” and Alice had said, “Oh, let’s just have sex,” and Nick had yawned again and said, “Mmmm. Okay.” And then they’d discovered there weren’t any condoms in the chest of drawers next to the bed, but by then the action was under way and neither of them could be bothered to get up and find one in the bathroom, and besides which it was a Wednesday and it was only once and, well, they were married. They were allowed to get pregnant, so therefore it wasn’t really likely. The next day Alice discovered there actually had been a condom in the back of the drawer if she’d bothered to stretch her fingers just a bit further but by then it was too late. The Sultana had already started doing what it needed to do to become a person.
    The day after they did the eight positive pregnancy tests (just in case the first seven were wrong) Nick had come home from work and handed her a small gift-wrapped box with a card that said “For the mother of my child,” and inside was the bracelet.
    To be honest, she loved that bracelet even more than she loved her engagement ring.
    Of course, to be really honest, she didn’t actually love her engagement ring at all. She sort of hated it.
    Not a single person in the world knew this. It was her only real secret, so it was a pity it wasn’t juicier. The ring was an Edwardian antique that had belonged to Nick’s grandmother. Alice had never met Granny Love, but she had apparently been formidable but adorable (she sounded dreadful). Nick’s four sisters, whom Nick called “the Flakes” because of their undeniably flaky tendencies, were crazy about that ring and there had been a lot of bitter remarks when Granny Love left the ring to Nick in her will. One or another of the Flakes was always grabbing Alice’s left hand and sniffing, “You just can’t get jewelry like that anymore!”
    Alice thought it was ugly. It was a big emerald set in the middle of a cluster of diamonds to look like a flower. It reminded her of a hibiscus for some reason and she’d never been a fan of the hibiscus, but what did she know, because every other girl in the world seemed to think the ring was divine , and apparently it was worth a small fortune.
    And that was the other problem. This was the most expensive piece of jewelry Alice had ever owned, and Alice lost things. Constantly. She was always retracing her steps, emptying out garbage bins and calling up train stations, restaurants, and grocery stores to see if they had her purse or her sunglasses or her umbrella.
    â€œOh no ,” said Elisabeth when she heard that Alice’s ring was an irreplaceable family heirloom. “You’ll just have to—I don’t know—get it surgically attached to your finger?”
    Most of the time, except for special events or if she was seeing the Flakes, Alice just