When Never Comes

by Barbara Davis

She never understood why people, women especially, assumed that every woman on the planet felt a bone-deep need to clone themselves for posterity. If they knew what she knew, had seen what she’d seen, they’d know there were worse things than being childless—like having a child you weren’t equipped to care for and scarring it for life. She rose, carrying her coffee mug to the kitchen, then stood staring out the window over the sink. It had begun to snow, lazy flakes drifting down like small white wings. It was the third week of November, a little early for serious snow even in Maine, which meant it wasn’t likely to hang around. Still, the sight of it accumulating on the deck was depressing. Stephen had loved the New England winters. Or rather, he had loved the idea of them, of being holed up over the long, frigid months, pecking away in a study with tall windows that overlooked the sea. It was the image he liked, the way he wanted the world to see him. But then, for Stephen everything had been about image. His career, the house, even their marriage had been carefully crafted to resemble something from the pages of a glossy magazine, as if real life had never quite been enough for him. Perhaps that explained the blonde in the morgue. And yet, there was no proof that he’d actually been having an affair. Maybe Connelly was right. Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like. Either way, the detective had kept his word. There’d been no mention of the Jane Doe on the news. The sound of a...