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street that belonged to a retired college professor and his wife, but otherwise there were no buildings in sight--really no structures even, except for the shed for the cemetery up the hill.
    By the Fourth of July that year she was even seriously considering the possibility of bringing a child into the house via adoption or a foster care program. Maybe, she thought one day as she painted tiny flags on her fingernails, she and Terry might wind up with a little baby, and together they could rediscover the hard work that came with an infant. The girls had been nine when they died, and so their parents' memories of colic and sleep deprivation were sketchy at best.
    Laura was so inspired by the prospect of another child that she agreed to teach Sunday school the following autumn, giving her at least an hour a week around kids. She couldn't have handled such a thing the previous year, but she could now. When the fall arrived, she would teach the first- and second-graders in a classroom in the wing off the sanctuary, using a standardized curriculum that seemed to stress word games and coloring and snacks. She wouldn't, as she had feared at first, need a degree in theology or the ability to make sense of the prophets. Mostly, she was told, she would just need patience, and she had plenty of that now.
    It had actually been the pastor who suggested a foster child. He'd offered his idea toward the end of May, presenting the notion to her as if she were a wounded bird in his palm, but one he was sure he could heal: He spoke quietly, but with great concentration and will. He said the kids--some of them, anyway--were less troubled than one would imagine, and in many ways they were easier than a baby. After all, they were older. But, he had stressed, they were no less in need of love.
    At first Terry had been tepid to the idea. He said he wasn't sure how emotionally invested he could become in a child who wasn't going to be his.
    Sometimes foster children become yours, she explained.
    Not the older ones, I expect.
    Maybe sometimes.
    So how should I view it, then? As a trial adoption?
    I guess if you wanted to, you could.
    He admitted that he could get used to the idea that there wouldn't be any diapers to deal with, and he said he certainly liked the notion that she'd be happy. Happier, anyway.
    She wasn't sure if he understood that the state would help subsidize any child they agreed to take in, and she wasn't sure she should tell him. Terry had a lot of pride, and she didn't think he'd appreciate public assistance. Moreover, she wasn't completely sure what she thought of the money, either. She feared that it made them seem mercenary, and their intentions look suspect. She didn't like herself much when she took a calculator from the kitchen drawer by the refrigerator and multiplied out thirteen dollars and eighty cents, the per diem stipend they'd receive from the state, by the thirty days that fell in so many months. But she also couldn't stop herself. And while a little less than fourteen dollars a day didn't sound like a lot of money, it added up quickly--especially since it was all tax-free, and none of it would have to go toward health insurance. Apparently that would be covered by the state.
    But when she broached the subject of a foster child again a few days later, she decided she should be honest with Terry about the money. Maybe if he didn't want it, they didn't have to take it.
    But he'd been fine. She noticed that he didn't ask how much money was involved--his way, she decided, of making it clear that the money had nothing to do with either his interest or his consent.
    And so she had filled out a surprisingly short application (why, she wondered, had she been so sure there would be essay questions?), and she and Terry had both taken a brief course on how being a foster parent differed from being a regular parent: What, in essence, would be expected of them, and what was involved. How these kids might differ from the children