“I’m so full I could explode. I literally don’t know how you do this.”
It had become their ritual. Some nights they even had queso at the Salsa Casita, hitting the three spots in succession like the Big Bad Wolf laying waste to the piggies’ homes. Admittedly, eating out like this was more expensive than cooking at home, and Arthur hated spending the money. (In this economy?!he joked whenever Wren wanted to go out. But he wasn’t really joking. He usually ruled the budget with an iron fist, but there was also a much more serious cost to consider of not keeping the pregnant lady happy.) On the plus side, due to some kind of mailing list error, they received multiple copies of the local coupon mailer every week and always had one freebie or another coming their way. They made it work.
Soon, Wren sat down with a tremendous caramel-drizzled sundae piled up to her chin and dug in.
“I’m serious,” Arthur said. “I know you’re eating for two, but it’s still impressive. Maybe you should go for a spot on the wall.”
Wren’s jaw dropped. “I’ve been telling you that for years! Look at all these losers,” she said, gesturing to the wall: a row of yellowing portraits featuring customers who’d been able to finish the famous three-pound sundae named the Heifer. The cheery, optimistic before pictures and the bloated but triumphant afters. “I could have outeaten any of them, and that’s before I got pregnant. Now? Not a single person on this wall could hold my jock. But you never let me do it.”
“Whoa,letyou? It costs thirty dollars to even try, and what do you get? Your photo on the wall and diarrhea?”
Wren’s eyes flew open, and she put her spoon down. Shewasn’t done eating, so the move caught Arthur by surprise. Pregnant Wren was not known for taking breaks mid-meal.
“What are you doing?”
“Shut up, I need total silence. I have a nugget of an idea and I’m trying to sift it out of the brain fog. I think it’s a good one.”
“What is—”
“Arthur, if I lose this idea, I’m gonna make you do maternity photos with me in a pumpkin patch.”
Arthur zipped his lips and watched nervously as Wren paced and chewed at her fingernails for some time, periodically mumbling to herself. Suddenly, she spun around to face him.
“I’ve got it,” she said. “I know what we have to do.”
3
“Are you sure we wrotethem down?” Arthur asked.
Wren sat cross-legged on the floor of their bedroom closet. Around her, the walls seemed to stretch toward the sky and close in. Hanging clothes pressed so tightly together they threatened to snuff the oxygen right out of the room. Damn, this apartment was small, but hey, at least it also had roaches.
A junk box sat in front of her, overflowing with crap, picture frames and obsolete electronics cords peeking out from underneath the lid.
“I’m absolutely certain that we did,” she said in defeat. What she was looking for was not in the junk box. She grabbed another from behind the loose, flowy ends of some hanging dresses and dragged it out. She popped the lid off the container. It hadChristmas Lightsscrawled on it in faded Sharpie and crossed out, thenBookscrossed out, then, finally,Etc. The top layer of this one, too, was all cords and cables for long-deceased cell phones and digital cameras. She grabbed a spaghetti-like mess of them and chucked them into the trash bag next to her.
“OK,” Arthur said, sitting back on his heels next to her.Out of the corner of her eye she could see Arthur pulling the cables out of the trash and giving them an extra look. She was certain he’d end up saving them just in case there was an emergency need to charge an iPod Shuffle from 2005. And he thought he wasn’t ready to be a dad. “Are you sure that this actually happened and you’re not fabricating the entire thing?”
“Yes, asshole. If I could rotate my spine I’d give you the worst death stare right now. I can’t believe you don’t remember.”
“Where were we?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“When? What year was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I have to say you make a compelling argument.”
“OK,” Wren said, resigned. “Some of the details are a little foggy. But I distinctly recall staying up late one night and writing down all the things we wanted to do before we turned thirty. Our bucket lists. We wrote it down, and we saved them…somewhere. I’m sure of it. We bared our souls to each other and you can’t even be bothered to remember.”
“We were high, weren’t we?”
“Or tipsy. Maybe both. I can’t remember.”
“You mentioned that.”
“Will you just help me look?”
