Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary

After making sure the children have eaten a sensible lunch, Emily retreats to her cool, darkened bedroom to ward off the migraine she anticipates every day. She thinks about Leon's dwindling prospects as a banker, about how Cecilia's college-inspired pretentious will prevent her from finding a husband, about how Briony no longer wants to be soothed as a child and about Lola, the incarnation of precocious, scheming Hermione, the older sister Emily dares not think about because that will surely bring on a headache. Illness always stops Emily from giving her children a mother's attention. Sensing this, her daughters call Emily by her first name.

Habitual fretting has given Emily a sixth sense about the house. She can lie in the dark and know everything. She hears Cecilia deliver the flowers to the guestroom and Leon and his friend arrive. She...