The second year I didn’t get pregnant, we saw a doctor. Nothing was wrong with either of us, and I was still young. “You’re not infertile,” the doctor said, “because you did get pregnant. Keep trying.” I cried in the parking lot, and John tried to console me.

I found myself growing brittle. It was harder to keep smiling, to stay perky. My mind drifted at work, and I made mistakes, too busy wondering if this month would be when nature deigned to let me have—and keep—what everyone else seemed to get so easily. John was sympathetic enough, but it was hard to put into words just how empty I felt. Like all the work and time I’d put into getting to this point in life meant nothing, not without a baby. What good was I if I couldn’t be a mother? Oh, I knew it was harder for some women, of course I did. But when Tina called with the news that she was having twins, I hung up, then called back later, saying a storm had knocked out our phone lines.

Babies were everywhere but in my womb.

I went on Clomid, but had to go off it because of the blinding headaches it caused. “There’s nothing medically wrong with either of you,” the doctor said, and I quit his practice and found someone else.

The second year of trying turned into a third year.

It wasn’t fair. Going out with other couples was harder now; once we’d all been in the same boat; now Ellen was having her second and was tired, and the Parsons couldn’t get a babysitter, and Abby and Paul had exciting news, and I didn’t want to see them anymore. Friday night dinners, which had been such fun and felt so grown-up, were now morose. Why us? When would it happen? What if something was really wrong? Should we be trying to adopt now? Could we afford a trip to Korea? Colombia? Russia? We were on three agencies’ lists, and not once did we make it to the interview stage.

Then John’s grandfather died, and much to his surprise, John inherited the old man’s home in Stoningham, Connecticut. When we pulled up to the house, I sat there, stunned silent. Grandpa Theo had been living with his sister in Maine for years and years. I’d never even been to Stoningham. Didn’t know this house existed.

It was absolutely beautiful. A Greek Revival that needed some work, but was elegant and large and so . . . so classy. As I wandered through, taking in the huge windows, the columns, the pilasters, friezes and cornices and other words whose meaning I didn’t even know, I fell in love. A front hall with a curving, graceful staircase. Fireplaces. A front parlor, a study, a family room, a dining room, a sunny if dated kitchen. Five bedrooms upstairs. Five!