James pushed through the wall of people.

“He was in Mario’s van, can you believe it? He fell asleep in there,” called Sandra to his back.

“Oh my God, I left it open. Jesus Christ …” said Chuckles somewhere in the din of voices. But James couldn’t answer. He looked at Ana, and he could not identify the expression on her face.

“Finny,” said James, moving his own body around both Ana’s and Finn’s, collecting their bodies in his arms. Somehow, in the crush of limbs, Finn shifted and came apart from Ana, attaching himself at James’s neck. James took in his scent, the warmth of him, and the two stood separately, breathlessly.

“Don’t ever do that again,” whispered James. “You scared us so much. You scared us to death.”

“Okay,” said Finn.

When James lifted his head from the boy, Ana had already moved across the room and stood talking to the police officer.

The crowd began to thin. The young couple from next door waved as they left.

“I can’t thank you—” said James, and Sandra shushed him, taking her husband’s hand. Their son, the boy in the Spider-Man costume, grabbed the final handful of candy from the blue glass bowl.

The bath was hot with lavender sweetness. James used Ana’s special bubble bath. He rubbed the washcloth over Finn’s shoulders. The boy did not feel fragile to him. This is new, thought James; he had always worried he would break him.

Ana sat on the toilet behind them, holding a white towel. James glanced at her and thought, Ah, there’s the broken body. Her thinness shocked him.

He returned to Finn and began his patter: “What’s the boat do? Does the boat go pshew?” James picked up a yogurt container, flew it through the sky.

Finn squealed. “No! That’s airplane! Boat stays in water!”

“Ah, like this?” said James, driving the yogurt container along the side of the tub. “Vroom, vroom.”

“Noooo!” Finn was laughing now, his shoulders sprinkled with soapsuds. “That’s car!”

“Oh, I see,” said James. “This is a boat. Delicious!” He pretended to eat the yogurt container. Finn could barely control himself, laughter pealed out of him. James glanced at Ana. She wasn’t smiling.

“Finn show you,” said Finn. He dropped the container on the water’s surface. It floated. “See?”

The phone rang. Ana handed the towel to James and left the bathroom.

James finished the routine: the small toothbrush, the Pull-Up, the flannel pajamas covered in monkeys.

He sat on the bed and read to Finn a book about a mole looking for love. He laid the boy down, moved his hands along the sides of the body as if encasing him in a tomb. Then he leaned in, nose to nose.

“You can’t go anywhere without me, or without Ana,” said James. “Do you know that now? I was so worried.”

Finn wriggled his arms out of the quilt and reached for James’s face.

“Okay,” he said.

“What were you doing anyway? Why did you leave?”

A look moved across Finn’s face, inquisitive and pained. James braced himself. “I look for Mommy,” whispered Finn.

James’s throat constricted. He put his hands on the boy’s face. He kissed one eyelid, then the other. “Yeah? You thought she was outside?” he asked. Finn nodded.

“I go home now?” he asked.

James took his hands from Finn’s cheeks, pulled at his beard.

“I don’t know, Finny. Your mommy’s really sick. You might have to stay here with us for a long time. Would that be okay?”

Finn searched James’s face. He didn’t reply.

“We would love to have you. We would be—honored to have you live with us,” said James. His voice dropped to a whisper. “We could have this extraordinary life. We can do anything. I think it’s possible.” He stroked his arm.

“I go home,” said Finn.

James pulled the boy from the mattress, engulfed him. He assumed Finn was crying, but when he placed him back on the bed, he saw that he was wrong; only James had been crying.

With his head on the pillow, Finn’s eyelids fell, and he was asleep.

Ana was sitting in the kitchen nook, surrounded by dark windows. Her hands were clasped in front of her on the empty table.

James filled a glass with red wine.

“Want one?”

Ana shook her head.

He stood at a distance, leaning against the island in the middle of the room.

“Who called?”

“Ann. The police called her,” said Ana. “She’s coming by in an hour.”

James stared at her. “Did she say anything? Does she think it’s unsafe here for Finn?”

“I don’t know. She said it was procedure.”

“Procedure.” James paused, sipped his wine. “Fucking bureaucrats.”

Ana could not look at him. She could feel him standing there with Finn on his side. Their allegiance was suffocating. It had filled the house, crowded her out.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” said Ana. She felt strange as she spoke, dry.

James put down his wine.

“What do you mean?”

Ana looked out the window.

“I don’t want to be a mother,” she said blandly. James breathed. He saw her suddenly as something barely held together, like a stack of sticks that happened to be piled up on the chair. She was a liar. There was a lie in their house. Anger welled up in him.

“Why did we spend two years with your legs in the goddamned stirrups then, huh? Why did we spend thirty thousand dollars? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“We didn’t spend it. I spent it. It was my money,” said Ana. “You wanted me that way.”

James stared at her. “You don’t get to say that.”

“I don’t? What do I get to say, then?” Ana turned from the window and locked James’s eyes. “How about: Who are you sleeping with? Or who did you fuck? Was it in the bathroom at the club, like last time? Was it that classy? Or is it something real? Is it love, James? Are you in love with Ruth the Temp?” The word “love” was twisted and wretched.

Then she turned back to the window.

“Never mind, actually.” Ana continued, in the same blank voice: “I’m not sure what I’m looking at. I recognize this house. I think I do.”

“Ana …” said James. “Ana, it was nothing. And it wasn’t Ruth. This girl—this woman I used to work with—not even sex, I swear—”

She waved her hand. “I don’t want to know,” she said.

James stammered, “What do you want me to say?”

“You never asked me what I wanted. We just kept moving somehow. We were grabbing at things as we moved along, and it seemed like the right moment, so we grabbed at a baby. But what if I never wanted that?”

“Don’t conflate this. You’re angry—”

“Yes, I’m angry,” said Ana. A blackness rustled in the yard.

“You did want a baby, you did. We both wanted it—”

“No,” said Ana. “I was relieved. I was so relieved. I went up to Lake Superior and I stayed in that hotel—”

“When you lost the baby—”

“But it didn’t feel like a loss. It felt like a reprieve.”

James shook his head. “Don’t say it—”

Ana continued: “And a woman—if you’re a woman—you can’t say that out loud. Did you know that? You cannot say it—” Ana began to weep. Her body rippled, her face went liquid. James stared at her. He had not seen her cry in years. “Because it makes you monstrous. To not want to be a mother is a monstrous thing for a woman. It’s grotesque.”

“Don’t cry, Ana, please,” said James. He leaned across the table toward her, reaching for her hands. She kept them at her sides, hidden.

“Being with you was good for me because it was like being alone. You—you were your own planet. I could just watch you from down here. But now—you’re something different. You’re so small now,” said Ana.

James bent his head. He knew this was true; something had broken off from him, some potency that they had both pretended was not required. But what it had been replaced with was better, he thought, what it was replaced with was Finn. He, James, had in him the possibility of something hallowed.