Chow Down (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

wooden train set we’d erected in one corner seemed to have been involved in a catastrophic collision with a fleet of matchbox cars. In short, everything about the space made it clear that there was a growing boy in residence.
    I backed out of the doorway and wandered into the bedroom next door. By contrast, it was nearly empty and mostly serene. The walls were painted a sunny shade of yellow. Eyelet curtains framed the windows. Sam and I had pictured this room as a nursery. Since the need had yet to arise, we hadn’t purchased any furniture.
    The only two things the room currently held were a Shaker rocking chair, with a well-worn cushion, and a wooden toy chest, hand-painted with scenes of small white bunnies playing in a meadow. Both pieces were left over from when Davey had been a baby. Both had been a cherished part of his earliest routines.
    Looking at them brought back a flood of happy memories of those long, quiet hours spent in my son’s company. I sighed softly and hoped that soon there’d be another child with whom to continue the tradition.
    Without stopping to think, as if the need was as natural as breathing itself, I walked across the room and sat down in the rocking chair. My toe pushed against the polished floor and the rocker began to move gently back and forth. The sway and the rhythm were enormously comforting.
    My shoulders relaxed. My neck unknotted. A half-formed smiled curled drowsily across my lips.
    “Hey Mom!”
    Davey came barreling into the room like a runner rounding third base. His sandals slid on the hardwood floor; his legs shot out from under him. His hip hit the boards hard enough to make me wince, but Davey came up smiling.
    “Hey what?” I asked.
    “Sam-Dad said you were taking a bath. What are you doing in here?”
    “Thinking.”
    “Ugh. Thinking is for school.”
    “No,” I said, “thinking is for whenever you want to feel smart.”
    “School,” Davey repeated. “Definitely. Sam wanted me to ask you if lamb chops were okay for dinner?”
    “Fine by me,” I said. Anything I didn’t have to cook myself tended to be fine by me.
    “And he asked me to bring you a glass of wine. Something yellow.”
    “White,” I corrected, noting that his hands were empty. “Chardonnay?”
    Davey nodded. “But it looks yellow. I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”
    “I bet I will.” Sam was pretty well briefed on my preferences when it came to white wines. “Where did you put it?”
    “Next to the bathtub. That’s where you were supposed to be.” The clear-cut logic of an eight-year-old on a mission.
    Davey got up, stepped over to the toy chest, and lifted the lid. He peered inside. “It’s empty.”
    “You knew that. It’s been empty for years.”
    “Yeah, well.” Davey shrugged. He was ever hopeful when it came to the magical appearance of new toys.
    “That’s a baby chest. Your toys are in your closet and your desk and your shelves. You have too many to fit in there.”
    “We need another baby.”
    “I know,” I agreed.
    He closed the lid and sat down on the box, settling in for a chat. “How long does it take?”
    “That depends.” Too bad he hadn’t brought my wine into the nursery, I thought. It was beginning to look like we might be there a while.
    “On what?”
    “On whether you’re asking about the length of the pregnancy itself or how long it might take before that to get pregnant.”
    “Both.”
    My son. Ever curious. What could I say? I supposed he took after me.
    “Women are pregnant for nine months, give or take a little.”
    “Wow.” Davey’s eyes widened. “That’s a long time. Are you sure?”
    “Pretty sure,” I said with a smile. “I had you, remember?”
    “Yeah, but that was a while ago. Maybe you forgot. Faith was only pregnant for two months when she had Eve.”
    “Dogs are different. Their gestation is sixty-three days.”
    “And she had a whole litter, not just one.”
    “Yes, but human babies take more time to develop. Were any of those puppies as smart as you are?”
    Davey thought about that. I knew he was debating Eve’s mental acuity. Sad to say, I’d known people who weren’t as smart as that dog.
    “Maybe,” he decided finally.
    “Maybe not.”
    I reached over and gave him a nudge between the ribs. Davey dodged away, laughing. He’s terribly ticklish if you know the right spots. He rolled off the edge of the toy box, a stunt accompanied by more dramatics than were strictly necessary, and