Alice falls off a spin bike in gym class and regains consciousness believing she is 29 years old and pregnant.

Alice learns at the hospital that it is 2008 and she has lost all memory of the previous ten years of her life.

Nick calls Alice from a work trip in Portugal, snaps that he has no time for games, and dismisses the seriousness of her injury.

Elisabeth reveals to Alice during the hospital visit that Alice and Nick are in the process of getting divorced.

Alice's mother Barb arrives at the hospital wearing theatrical makeup and a loud scarlet outfit, unrecognizable from the shy woman Alice remembers.

Alice learns that her mother Barb has married Roger, Nick's father, and that the two share a passion for salsa dancing.

Alice returns home from the hospital and discovers she has organized a cocktail party for kindergarten parents scheduled for that very evening.

Nick drops the children off at Alice's house and Madison angrily confronts her after figuring out that Alice does not remember them.

Alice and Nick are called to school after Madison cuts a classmate's hair off and shoves her face into a cake.

Alice, Nick, and Madison drive to the beach to talk through Madison's behavior, where Nick explains some of the reasons for their separation.

At Family Talent Night, Barb and Roger call Nick and Alice onstage to demonstrate a salsa routine in front of the whole audience.

Alice shocks Nick and his sister Ella by willingly returning Granny Love's engagement ring, which had been a bitter point of contention.

The smell of cooking lemon meringue pie and the sound of Elvis music overwhelm Alice at Mega Meringue Mother's Day, triggering a flood of returning memories.

After years of miscarriages and failed IVF cycles, Elisabeth gives birth to a healthy baby girl she and Ben name Francesca.

Ten years later, Alice wakes beside Nick, revealing she chose to reconcile with him and rebuild their marriage after all.

Alice's story begins when she falls off a spin bike and wakes with no memory of the past ten years, believing she is still a young pregnant newlywed. Hospitalized and disoriented, she learns she is 39, has three children, and is on the verge of divorce from her husband Nick. Returning home, Alice encounters a life she doesn't recognize — a beautifully renovated house, an unfamiliar boyfriend named Dominick, and a hostile ex-husband. As Alice pieces together the decade she lost, she begins to understand the resentments and betrayals that drove her and Nick apart, particularly through their troubled eldest daughter Madison. By reverting to her younger, more open-hearted self, Alice mends key relationships and lays the groundwork for reconciliation with Nick. When her memory finally returns at the Mega Meringue event, the epilogue reveals that ten years later she and Nick found their way back to each other.

Alice's accident, discovery of her changed life, and the road back to Nick.

Paramedics arrive at the gym and Alice insists she is 29 years old, currently pregnant, and that the year is 1998.

Alice finds a photograph of three unknown children in her backpack, who are confirmed by nurses to be her own son and two daughters.

Elisabeth visits Alice in the hospital and Alice, startled by her sister's aged and unhappy face, asks what has happened to her.

Elisabeth drives Alice home from the hospital and they laugh together carelessly in the car, reconnecting like their younger selves for the first time in years.

At lunch with Barb, Roger, and Frannie, Alice sees a glass salad bowl and asks who Gina is, instantly silencing the room.

Dominick stops to help Alice after she collapses near Rawson Street on a run and drives her home, revealing he is her boyfriend.

Frannie meets an irritating new resident at a Social Committee meeting at her retirement village and privately nicknames him Mr. Mustache.

Alice finds the sandstone lions George and Mildred discarded in the garage, scrubs them clean, and reinstates them at the front of the house.

Alice visits Dino's coffee shop and Dino recalls details about her relationship with Nick, helping her piece together her current life.

Alice learns that the red-headed woman she imagined kissing Nick in the laundry is Mrs. Holloway, who actually kissed Gina's husband Mike.

Alice arrives as a surprise guest at one of Elisabeth's marketing seminars, deeply moving her sister with the unexpected show of support.

At Family Talent Night, Nick asks Alice about the custody arrangement and Alice openly agrees to share the children equally, stunning Nick.

The night before Mega Meringue Day, Nick and Alice share a kiss on the couch and Olivia appears to ask if Nick loves Alice again.

Elisabeth and Ben hold a ceremony to grieve their six unborn babies, dropping a rose into the ocean for each lost child.

Xavier kisses Frannie in the back of a taxi after they share dinner together at a local Chinese restaurant.

Beneath Alice's central memory loss story runs a rich tapestry of secondary events that illuminate how her life changed over the missing decade. Alice's relationships with her honorary grandmother Frannie, her boyfriend Dominick, and the wider school community reveal a woman who has become socially polished but emotionally hardened. Frannie's own romantic journey — from her irritating first encounter with Mr. Mustache to their tender first kiss — mirrors Alice's story of love surviving hardship and grief. Alice's detective work slowly uncovers the truth about Gina's role in her life, the real identity of the woman in the laundry, and the full weight of her sister's infertility struggles. The Family Talent Night and the fragile days leading up to Mega Meringue capture the tentative progress Alice makes in mending her most important relationships. Ultimately, Elisabeth's long-awaited ceremony for her lost babies and Frannie's late-in-life romance offer hopeful counterpoints to Alice and Nick's troubled path.

The supporting events and relationships that shaped Alice's transformed life.

Alice discovers a Cesarean scar, stretch marks, and a dramatically shorter hairstyle in the hospital, confronting physical evidence of a decade she cannot remember.

Alice calls Nick's workplace and learns he has become the company's general manager and is currently away on a business trip to Portugal.

Alice finds a bunch of roses from a man named Dominick in her bedroom and realizes she has been romantically involved with someone new.

Elisabeth tells Alice about attending her first IVF miscarriage ultrasound and the American doctor saying 'I'm sorry, there is no heartbeat.'

Alice reads bitter email exchanges between herself and Nick in which they argue viciously over Christmas plans and his demand for Granny Love's ring.

Alice's neighbor Mrs. Bergen pointedly ignores her in the street, revealing the hostility that Alice's recent behavior has created in the neighborhood.

Madison wakes screaming from a nightmare, yelling for someone to get the tree off Gina, revealing how deeply she was traumatized by the accident.

Elisabeth reveals to Alice that Gina was killed when a tree crushed her car on the road and that Alice was driving directly behind her.

Nick tells Alice at the beach that she made him feel like an idiot at home and that he gradually withdrew from family life entirely.

Frannie reveals she has been writing letters to Phil in response to the letter he sent the day before he died decades ago.

Ben tells Elisabeth he agrees with Alice's suggestion to consider adoption, deeply shocking Elisabeth who believed he would never support the idea.

Alice arrives at Elisabeth and Ben's home, climbs into bed beside a despairing Elisabeth, and persuades her to face her pregnancy fear together.

With her memory restored, Alice admits to herself that she had been partly blaming Madison for Gina's death, which had fueled their strained relationship.

Frannie writes her final letter to Phil, signaling her readiness to fully accept his death and move forward in her relationship with Xavier.

Ben and Elisabeth adopt three sons from Vietnam after having Francesca, filling their home with four children after years of heartbreak.

While Alice's memory loss is the novel's central mystery, the real story lies in the turning points and revelations that explain why her life looks the way it does. From discovering physical evidence of her changed body to uncovering hateful emails she sent Nick, Alice pieces together a decade of accumulated resentment and grief. The revelation that she witnessed Gina's death — and that she had unconsciously blamed her daughter Madison for it — explains many of the deepest fractures in her closest relationships. Alongside Alice's personal revelations, Frannie's admission that she has spent decades writing to her long-dead fiancé, and Elisabeth's terrifying secret pregnancy, offer parallel arcs of grief, denial, and hard-won hope. Key turning points — Alice climbing into bed with a despairing Elisabeth, and Ben agreeing to consider adoption — show how small acts of openness can begin to repair years of distance. These pivotal moments collectively reveal that Alice's amnesia was not only a medical event but an opportunity to confront everything she had been avoiding.