The Museum of Lost Love. Gary Barker

      “Of course she is, but we’ll have fun until she does. And even after you and your mommy leave, you can come see me anytime you want and I’ll go see you too.”

      “Nope, she’s not coming back.”

      “I’m sure she is. Your mom probably just got delayed. I can call her.”

      “Mommy told me she wasn’t coming back. Mommy said you were going to take care of me for a while,” Sammy said, still not looking up from what he was drawing.

      Tyler had his mobile phone in his hand and was getting ready to dial her number. Sammy had looked up from his drawing now and was staring at him. Tyler was surprised at how calm Sammy was in stating that Melissa would not return. Tyler pulled up recent calls and dialed the number Melissa had used to call him. A message informed him that the number did not accept incoming calls. Tyler tried not to show any expression to Sammy as he called the number a second and a third and a fourth time. Then he texted a message to the number and immediately received a response: Error: invalid number.

      They drew and watched TV until it was time for dinner. Tyler suggested they go out for dinner and Sammy vigorously shook his head.

      “I need my car seat,” Sammy said.

      “Oh, yeah, of course. Well, I’ll tell you what. You sit in the back seat and we’ll put on your seat belt. I’ll drive slowly. I’m a policeman, so it’ll be okay just this once. I give you permission.”

      Sammy nodded his head, apparently satisfied with this.

      On their way back to Tyler’s apartment after dinner, Sammy was nearly falling asleep. As they walked inside, Tyler suggested he take a nap until Melissa came back.

      The nap became a full night’s sleep. Tyler watched Sammy as the boy slept on his couch until after two in the morning. Then Tyler took off his own shirt and shoes and went to his bedroom and slept on top of the covers of his bed. It was about seven the next morning when he woke up and saw Sammy standing next to him in his bedroom.

      “I told you she wasn’t coming back.”

      “Hey,” Tyler said, his voice groggy. “We’ll figure it out.”

      “Can I have some cereal?”

      ◆ ◆ ◆

      With more than four years having passed since they had broken up, two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and both of them moving to new cities, Tyler had no other current phone numbers for Melissa. She had made it clear when she ended it that she didn’t want to stay in touch. She never told him where she had moved, although he thought it might have been the Bay Area in California. She had friends there, and a cousin she was close to, and she had sometimes talked about moving there.

      After taking four days of sick leave, buying a car seat, finding a temporary babysitter, contacting Child Protective Services, calling his mother in Houston with the news, asking her to take a few days off work to come stay with him to help get Sammy settled in, filling up his refrigerator with food Sammy liked, and buying clothes and a mattress for Sammy to sleep on, Tyler remembered the name of one of Melissa’s close friends. It was one he thought lived in California. With a little online searching, he found a telephone number and a picture online that matched what he recalled the woman to look like.

      “Ashley, I’m not sure if you remember me but this is Tyler Nielsen. I was Melissa’s boyfriend for a while. I don’t know if you’ve seen her recently but she has a son, I mean we have a son …”

      “Yeah, I know about that.”

      “Listen, Ashley, Melissa left Sammy with me and then just disappeared. I live in Bastrop, near Austin. I don’t know if this was something she planned, or if something happened to her, or if she’s been in touch with you. I’d never even met him. I didn’t even know about him and she just left him here with me. Sammy says she told him that she was going to leave him to live with me, which seems to me about the craziest …”

      She cut him off: “Tyler, I can’t tell you anything more. She made me swear that I wouldn’t. You’re a cop, aren’t you? I mean, couldn’t you find her if you really wanted to? Don’t you have ways of tracking people down? Credit cards, phone numbers? Doesn’t sound very smart to leave your kid with his father who is a cop and think you can disappear without being found.”

      “I guess not,” he finally said. “Unless you figure the guy is smart enough to know that you can’t make a woman be a mother to a child if there’s some reason she doesn’t want to.”

      “You know, Tyler, she always said one of the reasons she liked you was because of your—what did she call it? —your ‘simple, decent common sense.’ So glad I could be of help. Good luck. I really mean that.”

      “Yeah, ok,” he said, slowly taking this in.

      He was about to hang up when Ashley spoke again.

      “Tyler, hold on a second. Look, we tried to talk her out of it. I think it’s a stupid idea. But she thinks you can do this. She has her reasons. That’s all I can say.”

      He waited, thinking she might offer more information, a motive, something to go on.

      “Take good care of Sammy,” Ashley said.

      Tyler thought it sounded like a threat. She hung up before he could respond.

      About a week later Tyler received a registered letter. Inside was Sammy’s birth certificate, listing Tyler as the father, a notarized letter signed by Melissa saying that she relinquished sole custody of Sammy to him, and Sammy’s vaccination records. Tyler knew there would be more paperwork, meetings with social workers, and a court hearing to make it all permanent. The therapy was his own choice.

      -

      MUSEUM SUBMISSION 71-2005

      She was working as a volunteer at an NGO in Rio de Janeiro. We were together for nearly a year. She moved into my apartment and got her visa renewed so she could spend more time in Brazil. Marriage really never came up, but we knew it was one way for her to get a permanent visa.

      It was the first time we had spent Carnaval together in Rio. I tried to explain to her that crazy things happen. Like why do you think the government distributes condoms by the tens of thousands every Carnaval? There’s the heat and the drums and beer and caipirinhas and bodies and we know what’s on everybody’s mind. It’s not a normal time. When I told her this she looked at me in one of those lost-in-translation moments.

      So this girl came up to me when we were at the Sambodromo and started dancing right next to me. Then she put her mouth to my ear and said she had been in a class with me at university. I didn’t remember her, but maybe she was. She kind of looked familiar. When I turned to respond, she started kissing me. And then I found that I was kissing her back and she pulled me to her and grabbed my ass and maybe I grabbed hers. For a minute I forgot about my American girlfriend standing right beside me.

      That’s Carnaval. That’s what I’d tried to tell her.

      I don’t know how much time passed. When I turned I saw my girlfriend take off through the crowd. I went after her but I couldn’t find her. It’s like thousands of people. I tried calling her mobile but she didn’t answer. I went back to where we were sitting and waited but she didn’t return.

      She came back to my apartment two days later.

      I asked if she was okay and she started kissing me and told me she was sorry and it didn’t matter and would I forgive her no matter what she did and pretty soon we were on the floor taking each other’s clothes off.

      Later that same night, she packed and left. She wouldn’t tell me anything else. Where she was going, anything.

      This is the condom package and the flyer they handed out that year at the Sambodromo. It was the health ministry’s way of getting back at the Catholic Church,