On the way home I stop at a holistic remedy center on Stewart. While the city is growing younger and younger, and more and more places like this are springing up, I find that it’s a bunch of women my age or older in the pregnancy section. We’re all there on that last quest. We don’t speak to each other, and we don’t actually connect. I fill my shopping basket with a list I pulled from the Internet: red clover blossoms and leaves, nettles, milk thistle, and my favorite, the appropriately named motherwort.

A young girl at the counter gives me a slight smile, and I don’t know if it’s meant to make me feel bad or encouraged. She’s about twenty-five and pretty. Her hair is tipped in a pretty shade of dark blue. Cobalt, I think.

The color of my sister’s children’s eyes.

“I’ve heard good things about milk thistle,” she says. “One of our customers made a tea of it every day and got pregnant in a month. No shit. A month.”

This girl knows her herbs.

“Thanks,” I tell her. “It’s for a friend. I’ll let her know.”

She gives me a nod.

I’m lying. She’s probably lying too. Nothing seems to work when you’ve waited too long.

I get back into my Lexus, the black leather seat sucking me in behind the wheel. I don’t know how much more I can take. I really don’t.

Connor calls and I pick up.

“Hey, babe,” he says. “Working late?”

“Heading home,” I tell him.

“Restaurant was slow, so Micah gave me the night off. I’m at home. Want me to scare up some dinner?”

I don’t say anything.

“Kristen? Did I lose you?”

His words seem prophetic just then, or maybe even accurate to the moment we’re in right now.

“I’m here,” I say as I pull off the freeway and head up the hill toward our place in Ravenna. “How about sushi? I can pick up.”

“I love sushi,” he says. “I’ll chill some wine.”

“Sounds good,” I say.

“I love you, babe,” he says.

Another pause. I turn the car onto a side street.

“You too,” I finally say.