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lightbulbs popped, and  thankfully no one was hurt. But Teddy and I knew better. Actually, I wassurprised that he remembered me—we’d both been kinda soused that night—but he told me on our firstofficial date that he’d never forgotten me and had kicked himself for not getting my number.
    On paper he was perfect: smart, handsome, athletic, family-oriented, religious, you name it. Hedidn’t mind sitting through chick flicks and was more than happy to hold my purse while I tried on clothes. He’d buy me little teddy bears on anniversaries and slipped notes in my lunch bags when I wasn’tlooking. He was the only boyfriend to whom I’d ever showed my novel manuscripts, and he encouragedme to find an agent, fully supporting my plan to work at Whitford’s until we had children—then I’d quitand be a writer and a mom. Or rather, a mom and a writer. He very much wanted me to be a mom.
    We dated for a year, got engaged, and lived together for another six months before the weddingand actually tried to get pregnant before the I dos, much to my parents’ chagrin (despite their touting of thesexual revolution and the fact that my brother had been a prenuptial conception). In hindsight, I think theymust have had some kind of intuition about our inevitable demise.
    “Is this really what you want?” Mom had asked.
    “Of course it’s what I want,” I had replied, annoyed. “Why would you say that?”
    “I know you want   Teddy ,” she’d said. “I just question what you want more—to be a mother or notto be without Teddy.”
    I’d dismissed her and brushed the conversation off as absurd. But looking back on it, I saw whatshe saw. I  had become   impatient   to find someone with whom to spend my life. Someone to and withwhom I’d dedicate my novels and live blissfully in the ’burbs until the kids went off to college, and thenwe’d buy a camper and take a cross-country trip. I’d had a string of boyfriends, none of whom lasted formore than eight months, and could rattle off their names the way Will Hunting named all his imaginarybrothers in   Good Will Hunting   (Marky, Ricky, Danny, Terry, Mikey, Davey...). But none of them felt “right” to me, or like—dare I say it—“the One.” I’d never been a comparison shopper, and I didn’talways know what I was looking for, but once I found it, the search was over. In the case of a mate, therealways seemed to be some missing puzzle piece, although I never knew what it was. All I knew was that Ihadn’t found it. And by the time Teddy came along, I had decided that it would reveal itself within thecourse of our marriage. Perhaps it would be our child, I told myself. Besides, how would I ever find

    anyone better than Teddy? He even put the seat down, for chrissakes.
    A year after we got married and my menstrual cycle became more erratic (prompting a number of false alarms), we started seeing the specialists. And about six months after that it was finally confirmed that I had an ovulation problem (and we couldn’t afford in vitro fertilization), Teddy insisted that he was put on this earth to be a father—a biological father, that is. Adoption was not part of his plan, nor were surrogates or stepchildren.
    Then came Ramona and, shortly afterward, what I’ve since called “the Humiliation.”
    Thing is, before Teddy, I’d never given the idea of having children much thought. I wasn’t opposed to it, but rather than forming my life plan around it, having children was more like a contingency plan. With Teddy, however, it had become the whole plan. But for some reason, finding out I couldn’t have children had somehow rendered all the other life possibilities pointless. In the way I had lived all my life knowing the Twin Towers were always relatively nearby, with no sense of urgency to visit them, when they were suddenly gone the heap of regret was as massive as the rubble left in their wake.
    And in the blink of an eye, I was forty and