Yesterday, while partaking in that modern pastime of absent-minded Instagram scrolling, my thumb came to rest on a picture of a young woman holding a newborn. The woman's name was Melanie, and seeing the picture tightened my chest. Before I could think better of it, I messaged Melanie, asked if the child was hers. She replied within a minute, and in the affirmative. Thank goodness, because only in hindsight did I fully consider the recklessness of my message—the last time we had met up for coffee, Melanie had only recently completed her third IVF induction, and I didn't know how many more times they would try before abandoning the family she'd dreamed of since childhood. But now, knowing the baby was hers, I was flooded with warmth—the warmth associated with good things happening to deserving people. Drunk on good will, I decided to celebrate Melanie's bubble-cheeked progeny by getting her a card.

The sun had already disappeared over the mountains as I descended the steps of my apartment building and entered the clamoring city. On the brief walk to the grocery store—between the urine-scented Colfax Avenue and the mansions lining the park—I fell into a reverie, reliving my relationship with Melanie, now a decade past. Ours had been a carefree union, at least for the most part. I was twenty-three when we met, and Melanie was three years younger. Given our youth, we never initially talked about any plans for a family, which sat well with me, as I had no plans for one—not then, or ever. In the end, my silence proved prescient, as it was this very issue that would end us two years later. Not because she would want a baby at twenty-two, but because she would not see the point in staying in a relationship we knew to have an expiration date. On this point, I could not fault her. The breakup had been sad but amiable, and our friendship had proved enduring, even as she began dating new men—including James, her husband.

Arriving at Kroger, I meandered through the throngs of Sunday evening procrastinators and over to the greeting card aisle. I come from a greeting card family. Several times a year I will open my mailbox to find a brightly colored envelope inside. Over time, I have come to learn that many people view greeting cards as an act of laziness—a way to outsource feelings. But to my mind, the tacky message inside is merely incidental. Rather, the point of a card is telling a person, Oh hey, I thought of you today, and I even put in a bit of effort to let you know. I suppose a text message could serve the same purpose. But they remain less fun to open.

Though the store was busy, the card aisle was not. Ignoring a wide expanse of meanspirited birthday greetings—apparently a large section of the American populace uses birthdays as an opportunity to mock their friends and loved ones—I arrived at the New Baby section. I live downtown, and the store in question is about half the size of its suburban counterpart. The card selection is proportionally miniature, as well as perennially understocked. Even in a properly sized store it is hard to find a message with the proper balance of earnestness to sentimentality—ideally a ratio of 4:1. Lose half the selection, and it is all the more challenging. For this reason, I was drawn to the blank cards. The only question was what picture best spoke to Melanie's character. Today's contenders included a mother and baby panda, a stork holding a bundle, and a watercolor giraffe. For no reason other than gut instinct, I went with the pandas. As I approached the checkout, I considered what message I would write. Would I be longwinded and philosophical? No—that was no longer our relationship. I would be brief but poignant. One sentence, maybe two.

Leaving the store, I got a sudden urge to let Julia know about Melanie's big news, as the three of us had all worked together at Goldman Sachs. Julia and I had actually even dated, following Melanie's and my dissolution. To be honest, I think Melanie was a bit surprised that I ever landed Julia—had assumed her to be out of my league. And of course she was right. Months after breaking up, even Julia confided in me that our relationship had been a bit of an experiment on her part, given her usual "type" never seemed to pan out. Julia was smart, sexy, and intense. I was happy with two of those things, but it was Julia who showed me that I need space in any relationship. Physical space, as well as emotional. More space than she could accept, apparently, as we ended after about a year. By Julia's telling, I was the one who had ended it, though I remain unable to reconstruct how, exactly. To my recollection, there was a prolonged phone call that went late into the night, and the next morning we were done. The phone call had seemed trivial at the time, and I cannot even recall its contents in retrospect. How I wish I could.

I was nearly home and shivering with cold when my phone buzzed with Julia's reply. Typical of her succinct nature, her text was a single emoji; specifically, the embarrassed smiley face—wide eyes, red cheeks. Altogether cryptic. But before I could even begin to speculate on its meaning, a subsequent text revealed that she, too, was pregnant. Five months. The father was Peter, from Goldman Sachs, of all people. (She had gone back to her "type.")

Following Julia's revelation, I stopped walking, the sharp bite of the evening momentarily forgotten. I was only two blocks from my apartment. I could even see its roofline, rising over the Papa John's. But my feet did not take me any closer. Two exes having babies in the same year—what were the odds? Probably better than I realized, actually. Still, something was pulling me in the other direction, away from my warm apartment. And, sure enough, after turning up my collar to the late October cold, I turned around, heading back toward Kroger.

It was approaching nine pm as I reentered the store. As such, the aisles were less crowded than before. Peaceful, even. I have always found a strange comfort in box stores. Maybe it is the lighting—brighter than anything save daylight. Or maybe it is the sheer order of the place: a bastion of symmetry in a world maligned by perpetual chaos.

Arriving at the card aisle felt like a homecoming. There were my animal friends, right where I had left them not an hour earlier. After a weighing of options, I went with the giraffe this time.

I now held two cards, yet I did not leave the aisle. Perhaps inevitably, my mind had drifted to Sophia. Sophia was my most recent ex, and as such, our split remained a bit rawer than the other two. Raw enough that I rarely looked at her Instagram. Sophia was quiet, smart, and remained—even after nearly two years of dating—a veritable enigma. She would answer any question I asked her, but never divulged on her own initiative. We had worked well together, in that way. A natural fit. It came as a shock, then, when she told me she had accepted a job in North Carolina. I hadn't even known she was looking to leave Denver until it was a done deal. So then maybe there was a difference between Sophia and I after all: I was floating though life, reacting passively to whatever the universe threw at me, and Sophia was steering her own ship.

Still facing the wall of cards, I pulled out my phone. When I saw Sophia's profile, I laughed out loud—quite literally. Because there it was, in the first picture: the baby bump. I didn't even realize she was in a relationship. A bit of mental math and I realized it had been over a year since we'd communicated. Longer than I expected. Though we had not talked recently, we had ended on decent enough terms, and I still had her address in my phone. And so I scanned the racks for a third time.

I got the stork carrying the bundle.

It was as I approached the check-out kiosks for a second time that evening that a creeping darkness began tugging at my mind. It took me a moment to pinpoint its locus, but then I found it—something I had once read. Apparently, nearly one in three pregnancies end in miscarriage. I remembered the statistic after all these years because the number had seemed shockingly high. I knew of at least two instances, personally: Brianne, from work, and then Lacy, my neighbor, a few years back. So did that mean, of my three exes, one would lose their baby? It felt like some deranged Monty Hall Problem—three doors; two reveal babies, the last, a miscarriage. Melanie's door was already open. That left two to go.

Outside, the temperature had dropped into the high forties, but the chill no longer bothered me. In fact, it felt good.

I don't think I can properly call myself a religious person, but that night, as I walked home, I mouthed three separate prayers into the sky—into the universe—for three different babies; one born, two on the way. They may not help, those words, spoken at a whisper into the chilly autumn air. But I figure they won't hurt.