Catherine walked out of her hotel room without saying goodbye to her husband—just like she did the day before. Today, though, Tim followed her outside and stood beside her in the parking lot. He couldn't have known what they were waiting for—she booked the whole of their trip with absolutely no help from him, but he didn't ask, so she didn't offer.  
For Tim, it was true, he had no idea what was going on. Two nights ago, Catherine shut down after dinner and, when he asked what was the matter, she shut him down, too. Yesterday, he had been shocked when she disappeared in the morning and stayed out all day. Today, he didn't know what else to do but silently follow her out the door.  
Catherine was wondering which of them would speak first when the sound of tires on gravel broke the silence. A few seconds later, a van pulled up, dirt puffing from below the tires. Out popped a skinny, twenty-something tour guide. "I'm Julio! It will take us about thirty minutes to get to the river, so you can relax, or if you have any questions about Costa Rica, I am happy to talk with you."  
"Your English is beautiful!" Catherine said. "But do you mind if I practice my Spanish?"  
Though Tim didn't actually make a sound, she could hear his snort. The other night, he had asked whether she really spoke Spanish well enough to order off the local's menu. He was using that tone that said he just knew she was going to screw this up, so she stopped speaking to him. She hadn't said much more to the waiter, either, even when her meal arrived and she had no idea what it was. If she had expressed her hurt, the way their couples' counselor kept telling her to, she would have learned that he was just worried about her getting a meal that wouldn't sit right with her. She would have had to admit that her stomach had been finicky for the last year—since her body went through what it did.      
Once at the dock, Catherine tried to focus on the rainforest around them—the way the vines seemed to wind their way around everything, making it impossible to tell where one branch ended and another began. It reminded her of her crazy curls, except in various shades of green instead of the red of her hair, which she was now coloring to hide the grays. Tim had gone completely gray at thirty, but it managed to look good on his straight, floppy hair, Catherine thought. Despite all they were going through, he was still a very attractive man.  
The three of them climbed into a small boat. Tim sat in the back, she in the middle, and Julio up front. Tim and Catherine both faced forward, and Julio faced them; only Julio and Catherine could make eye contact. Julio paddled and chattered, pointing out various flowers, birds, and animals. "Maybe we'll even spot Jesucristo," Julio said, smiling. 
Catherine took the bait and asked, "Jesus Christ?"  
Julio laughed as he said, "It's the nickname for a lizard that walks on water. Funny, no?"  
Catherine smiled.  
She asked questions every now and then, but mostly they just watched the forest, which seemed to be swallowing their tiny boat. The green was everywhere around them, aside from a narrow opening in front of them, where a cloud's worth of gray sky poked through. Even the river below her looked green with the trees' reflections. Every once in a while, a pop of orange stood out. Heliconia, Julio said. The bright flowers looked almost neon against the fog in the air.  
Bird songs and the hush of Julio's paddles echoed against the arbored walls. Her husband slapped at bugs from time to time, the sound of skin hitting skin his only contribution to the conversation.  
"Look!" Julio said, "Up there, those are sloths."  
Catherine squinted and saw brown fur high in a tree.  
"I tell you a joke about sloths: When they have babies, they do it in the treetops, so no predators can eat them. The baby falls out of the mother, bouncing up and down on the umbilical cord until the mother pulls it up to safety. You can picture it, right?"  
Catherine nodded, trying to keep a smile on her face, even though all she could think about was her baby, who came sliding out of her body too early and never bounced, not on her knee or the little jumper they had bought him.  
"Well, I say that this is how people came up with the idea of bungee jumping!" Julio continued. "By watching sloths give birth!" He cracked up.  
Catherine made herself laugh even though she could almost feel the piercing pain in her pelvis. She willed Tim to put a hand on her back, squeeze her shoulder, something, but he didn't, and she wouldn't turn to look at him, especially not with tears in her eyes. If she had turned, she would have seen that he had tears, too.  
And then she thought about the question her sister had asked her before she left for the trip: Are you two going to be okay?  
Catherine had pretended that she was asking about the safety of traveling to Costa Rica, and answered that the country's violent crime rate was lower than that of the US.   
What does Tim say about you still feeling so upset, even nearly a year after the loss? her sister replied.  
They were on the phone, so her sister couldn't see her when she shrugged. All she heard was silence. And that was all Tim heard about her deep sadness, too. She hadn't talked to him about it in months, after he had seemed not to care when she mentioned how upsetting it was that there were so many babies in the diner one Saturday. Sure, the waitress had come by then to refill their coffee, interrupting their conversation, but he hadn't brought up the subject after they were alone again. Catherine never brought it up, either. At first it was a test—how long until he asked how she was doing?— and then being angry with him had become as rote as any other habit.   
He can't read your mind, her sister had said on the phone.  
Only after they hung up did Catherine realize exactly what she wanted to say: Telling him how to help her was like telling him what to buy her for Christmas. She wanted him to just know. Not because he could read her mind, but because he knew her. When, in years past, he got her the cashmere cardigan she had been eyeing, or the teapot that whistled like a bird, it was like a sign: They were okay.    
I need a sign now, she thought. Not that she was religious or even especially superstitious, but she wanted something to point her one way or the other. The river and the forest were quiet, though, save for the buzzing of various insects. Catherine wondered what she was expecting, a volcano to erupt? That was what she had thought would happen yesterday, when she was at Arenal with a different tour guide—that the volcano, which had been dormant for the last five years, would burp out lava and she'd turn to ash. Dying like that, alone, while Tim probably watched television he couldn't understand back in their hotel, terrified her. The two of them, so separate at her final hour. Then again, sitting here now, she felt just as alone.  
And then, as if on cue, Julio called out, "There he is! There's Jesucristo!"   
Catherine looked up and saw a tiny green lizard hopping along the surface of the water on its skinny-as-sticks legs, gliding as if the water were solid. She laughed and clapped her hands. The lizard turned its head, hopped again, stuck its tongue out, all as if walking on water were nothing. Pretty soon, tears rolled down Catherine's face and she laughed some more, her smile the biggest and most natural it had felt in months. Julio laughed, too, and they locked eyes for a long, full moment. Then she looked back at Tim, hoping to share the pleasure with him, too, to be together with him in the boat, in the moment. But his eyes were on the mosquitoes floating near his legs, his hand raised to slap at whichever got too close. Man do I hate these damn bugs, he thought, missing the whole thing. And Catherine just looked away, not bothering to clue him in, even though Jesus Cristo was still there, performing its miracle.