She watched the sureness of his hands, the love that went into the preparation. She had forgotten, long forgotten, the ritual of it all. She had carefully married a man who, like her, did not drink a drop.

He made his martini. She’d never noticed, as a child, the tenderness between a drinker and his drink. He didn’t grab the bottle by the neck as she remembered, but lifted it with two gentle hands, one at the base and one at the belly. His hands moved delicately from ice to glass, bottle to glass, each gesture a signal of love. As a result, the liquor seemed to shine with a thousand glints and glimmers of gratitude as he carried it, close to his breast, back to his spot on the diaper on the couch. She sat down in the chair opposite him. She didn’t realize until she released the weight onto the armrest what a strain the baby had been on her arms and neck. With her free hand, she reached for the book, saying, only when she had firmly secured it, “May I have a look now?”

“Of course. It’s your book.”

“It’s not mine,” she laughed. “Mine’s not finished. Someone else beat me to the punch.” But there was her name below the title, in a sort of swirly script she didn’t like. The words ADVANCED READER’S COPY ran diagonally across the upper left corner. Was it the first of April? She was conscious of how long it took her sloggy mind to find the month. January. Even if it were April Fools’, this was not in the realm of the sense of humor of anyone she knew. And no one knew about this novel.

She opened the book. On the left-hand side, opposite the title page, which again declared this to be hers, was the copyright date. She gasped.

“What is it?” the man asked between two loving, shut-eyed sips. “Two more years?”

He took in the gestalt of her life—the robe, the boob, the primary-colored plastic items on the floor, the cardboard books with corners chewed off, the bouquet of half-deflated balloons hovering in the corner—and shrugged.

She turned the page. It was dedicated to her mother. Of all people. “The jig’s up now, mister.” It was an odd choice of words for her, and she was reminded of walking with her mother through a parking lot, though she couldn’t say why.

“I suppose you had a reconciliation.”

“No chance of that. She’s dead.”

“But not beyond the reach of forgiveness.”

She slammed the book shut, though its flimsy galley covers did not give her the effect she wanted. “Who sent you? What is this about?” She wondered if he was, after all, a religious fanatic, one of those Mormons wanting to do a little hocus-pocus on all of her ancestors.