Certainty

A food line wraps around a patio. Busy season at the fish shack by the falls. An arm wraps around a book. My arm. My book. I hear a voice in my left ear. "What are you reading?" a woman asks. A memoir about a woman adopted as a child, an infant, really, by a family, a woman, really, who wanted her own children, really. (The word really eases the explanation.) The author is British, I tell her. She's well known, I say, and pass the book to the curious, kind woman wondering about a book wrapped in an arm in a line for fish. Others have a hand circling a pint (I should too, I think). Curious, kind woman points to titles listed inside the book. "I've read this and this. And this one was very good," she says. I know only the one back wrapped in my arm. The author and I have a thing in common, I say. Both of us were adopted by women who really really really wanted their own children. The woman's husband (he has a pint) looks me in the eyes. His appear moist. She really said that? You really know that? Yes, she did. Yes, I do. People who really really really want their own children should probably not adopt, I say. He appears worried. It's all right, I tell him. I graduated from therapy, I say, and glance at a menu posted on the patio. I would really like to order something different this time I tell curious, kind woman and worried husband. You? We'll get what we always get, bay scallop tacos. Really? Me too. They're the best.