The forgotten posters make her smile, and in the reflection of the car’s back window, she sees a vestige of her old self, a ghost of the girl who smiled like that when her man came calling.

When they had given up on ever becoming parents, it was understandable to have found some other outlet for their unfulfilled nurturing urges. They adopted two mature cats, but neither one was affectionate and did nothing to fill the void. They sent money to Save the Children and got a letter every few months from the child in Peru who was supported by their donations. But they never heard her voice, or developed any real sense of her existence. Ed took the promotion to floor supervisor, putting in lots of hours, promising the extra money would ensure a comfortable retirement. And he nurtured her, encouraging Alice to sign up for classes at the community college, to seek out activities that would give her fulfillment. The years of frustrated trying had been irrevocably lost; now they would relax and accept their circumstances and enjoy the rest of their lives. The absence of child no longer felt like a hole; how could you miss something you’d never had?

And then they did.

On the eve of her thirty-ninth birthday, against all odds, Alice found herself pregnant.

And the second time they found themselves childless, there was simply no outlet. Alice pushed away Ed’s devotion. She was too angry. For a long time, there was nothing she could do but wait for each day to pass and hope to sleep for a few hours at night. A few hours, at most two or three, when the circling thoughts simmered down enough to let her rest, when the why and the what if and the self-doubt and the desperate search for a reason might give way to the exhaustion and let her sleep unmolested until she’d wake before dawn and meet the incomprehensible truth wide-eyed.

23

The posters on the backseat mock Ed every time he gets into the Cutlass, nagging him with a task shirked. But he seems to forget about their existence the moment he pulls out of the garage. Especially if the dog is with him. Just goes out of his mind. Pfft. Gone. Oops, should remember to do that. Today, Ed remembers, and he takes the signs out, tears them into neat quarters, and stuffs them in the bag of trash he’s jamming into the barrel for today’s pickup.

Alice catches him in the act and he gets defensive. “Don’t you think that it’s odd that we haven’t seen any lost posters? Wherever this little guy came from, it isn’t from around here. He’s either run away or been dumped, and there’s no telling how far afield he’s gone. We could be hanging posters and putting ads in all the wrong places. Let’s give it a rest.”

Ed doesn’t miss the expression on her face, a look of relief with a suggestion of puzzled gratitude, and Ed walks out the door rather than look at her, because it has been too long since he’s seen an expression like that on his wife’s face.