Free Her Loving Husband's Curse by Meredith Allard

them that much I’ll take them down. I don’t want to look at that annoyed face for the next two weeks.”
    James looked at the caricatures of green-faced, sharp-fanged, cape-wearing vampires, cackling witches on broomsticks, shapeless, booing ghosts, howling werewolves, glaring square-faced Frankensteins, and he shook his head. But he saw Sarah admiring the pumpkin-painted porcelain plates, the haunted house flags, the Witches Brew cauldron by the door, her face flushed like a costumed girl ready for candy Halloween night. He reached for her hand when she smiled that smile he lived for. He would do anything to keep that smile happy.
    Again, the thought that she would be a wonderful mother.
    Again, the voice. “Yes,” it said.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Fine. I’ll have everything down by tomorrow night.”
    “No, Sarah…” He put his arms around her though she tried to push him away. “Keep the decorations. Keep whatever will make you happy. All I want is for you to be happy.” She stopped resisting and relaxed into him. “What do you want, Sarah. Tell me what you want to be happy.”
    “You make me happy,” she said. “You’re all I need. And…”
    “And what? A child?”
    Sarah pushed the air from her lungs. She pulled away from him, her dark eyes unsure. “I thought there was no way…”
    “If you want to adopt we should.”
    “What about all the reasons you had about why it could never work?”
    “We’ll figure it out.”
    “Are you sure?” She held herself still, as though she were afraid he would change his mind and this joyous moment would fall away from her like water through cupped hands.
    “There’s only one thing I have ever been more sure about, and that’s you.”
    Sarah smiled. James could see the peace settle over her, an iridescent halo. She crossed her arms, pulling him, closer, closer, as though she wanted to merge with him. They were already one, James thought, each a part of the other.
    Sarah looked at the orange and black. “You’ll have to get used to the decorations. Kids like Halloween.”
    James laughed. “I know, honey. I know.”
     
    While James was at work that night, Sarah felt the restless leg syndrome shaking her bones. A child. James agreed to adopt a child. Where she had managed to subdue the longing when she thought he would never agree, now that he was open, he was willing, the manic I-have-to-have-it-now need she felt outside of Jocelyn’s house returned, its full force rattling her, trapping her under an avalanche of want.
    “It’s going to take time,” James said before he left. “There’s a lot of paperwork to fill out, and there’s interviews, and background checks…” Sarah laughed at the look on his face when he said ‘background checks.’ Then he winked at her. “How far back do you think they check?” he asked.
    In search of something to keep her body busy and her mind occupied, she went for a walk. She walked far and fast, away from the bay down Derby Street to Essex, around Washington Square and the green expanse of Salem Common. The night was crisp and cool, not yet cold, the richness of autumn with the barest hint of winter fade. The houses, the shops, everywhere she looked was Halloween. Round, orange pumpkins sat bundled on porches, some left whole, others carved jack-o-lanterns lit from the glowing candles inside. She pulled her sweater around her neck and headed down Hawthorne Boulevard, passing the red-brick Hawthorne Hotel, walking along the thin strip of sidewalk separating the sides of the road, past the statue of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Salem’s favorite son, then back to Essex Street and Central, around the Old Burying Point Cemetery, the oldest graveyard in Salem. She passed that quickly, ignoring the stone-carved headstones. Suddenly, she remembered that the remains of John Hathorne, Hawthorne’s ancestor, a magistrate at the witch trials, were buried there, and she understood her sudden chills. Then she laughed at herself.