instinct before she realizes that the gas is still being pumped. She hears the metallic clunk of the pump handle shutting off, and Eva is annoyed—now the girl is nowhere in sight. Stupid Oregon law, not allowed to pump your own gas. When she first moved out here, years ago, she thought it was as charming as the Japanese teahouses in the Rose Garden, as though the whole state was so polite that it knew nobody wanted to stand around in the famously miserable rain while their car filled up. Lately, especially now with the baby who cries if he’s in his car seat without the soothing rumble of the motor, it just seems inefficient and inconvenient.
Finally, Eva sees her coming around from by the restrooms and starts the engine to put down her window, turns the heater vents on high. She hands her credit card to the girl, who has it back to her in no time, practically shoving it back in the half-closed window, holding it in the sleeves of her sweatshirt, the hood up around her face now, and though she will regret it later, Eva spares her the embarrassment of looking at her ugliness too closely. The girl ducks her head as she half runs back to the little brick building.
Eva watches in satisfaction as the gas meter turns all the way back to full, puts the car in drive, and winds smoothly on the switchbacks toward the highway, to the health club. The fog dissipates into light drizzle as she leaves the hills of Portland Heights. Her windshield wipers make streaks of the silver water; she needs to get some new blades. At the dark on-ramp traffic meter, she adds this to her list of things to do during the week. Buy windshield wiper blades. Something of interest…
In the gym parking lot, she grabs her water, her cell phone, her gym bag off the floor of the passenger seat, and gets out.
For a moment, as she stands by the driver’s side door, the sun breaks through the clouds, and Eva is struck by the way it glints off the windshields of the wet cars all around her. How long since they have seen the sun? she wonders as she opens the back door to get Wyeth out. If they could just have a day or two of sun this month, things might be—
The car seat is empty. Eva freezes, a rush of dread like a truckload of lead to her empty stomach, feels it drop to her toes.
I left him with Paul, she thinks, looking again. Her hands shake as she opens the phone to call home, when she remembers her brother earlier that morning, leaning in with his carry-on over his shoulder through the back door of the Volvo to drop a kiss on Wyeth’s sleeping forehead. She remembers too Paul’s sleepy voice in the predawn dark of this morning as she pulled on her black stretch pants, “You’re taking the baby, right?”
“What?” Her irritated rasp of a whisper.
“I have to go to the office to empty the dehumidifiers—then the cleaners are meeting me at eight thirty.”
And so she had scooped up the sleeping baby, grabbed a dry diaper for when he woke, grouchily zipped him into a fleece, and left.
I should call 911.
Come on, Eva! Nothing but frozen disbelief. Staring again at the empty, rear-facing blue plaid car seat, Eva snaps her phone shut. The sun goes back behind a cloud. She can’t dial, her hands shaking too badly, she needs people, help, corroboration, validation, she needs this not to be happening to her alone in the middle of the vast and nearly vacant 24 Hour Fitness parking lot on a cold Monday morning at the end of January.
Eva runs, jerkily, toward the gym, her legs flying awkwardly out of the sockets, out of her control. She trips over the curb and falls to her palms and knees in front of a slope-shouldered Asian woman wearing a turquoise velour sweat suit just outside the glass doors.
“I—” She tries to say something, but just like the dream with the scream-but-no-sound, finds her throat closed, her voice a strangled squeak. “I’ve lost my baby—help.”
For a moment, the woman looks at her coldly. She glances grudgingly between cars in the parking lot, as though the lost baby might be toddling around nearby, and Eva chokes, “He’s only eight weeks, I’ve lost him, help me.”