On the Divinity of Second Chances by Kaya McLaren Read Free Book Online

package of thank-you cards first so I’ll have something to cover up the e.p.t. with. If I am pregnant, I’ll need postshower thank-you cards, and if I’m not, well, a person can always use more thank-you cards. I walk down the girl aisle, pluck an e.p.t. off the shelf without stopping, and bury it under the cards. Why is it that I have never seen a handsome guy in this store, but the moment I have a pregnancy test in my basket, they’re everywhere? I get in line. One of the handsome guys gets in line behind me. I pretend I forgot something and go off to look at toothbrushes while I wait for the coast to clear.
    I get in line again. The checker is young; she’s wearing a gold cross around her neck. I wonder if she practices abstinence. Power to her if she does. I look at my left hand—no ring. I take my little cardigan sweater off and hold it in my left hand to hide my ring finger. I thought I was too old and too educated to ever be in this situation. I thought I was mature, confident, and capable enough not to feel self-conscious about this. I’m not, though. I feel totally exposed, totally vulnerable. Everywhere I look, I see judgment. I’m sure it’s simply my own judgment mirrored back to me, but it makes my heart race just the same. The checker remains expressionless and slips my merchandise into a white plastic bag. The bag isn’t completely opaque, and I can see the letters e.p.t. right through it. I’m quite sure everyone else in the whole world has nothing better to do than to try to see through my bag and figure out its contents.
    I put my purchases in my car and walk next door to the grocery store for a bottle of water so I can prepare to pee. I see babies everywhere. How is it I never noticed all these babies before? I study the mothers. Do they look happy? Yes . . . a little tired, but pretty happy. All but one wear rings and look economically comfortable. In fact, they look content. They are the content people I’ve been looking for. What is contentment anyway? It has to be more than just economic comfort. The one mother without the ring looks hardened. In her eyes, I can tell she, too, sees judgment everywhere. She even sees it from me, which is ridiculous given my circumstances.
    “What a beautiful baby,” I tell her.
    She looks down at the baby with a reluctant and heartbroken smile, then up at me for a quick second. “Thanks,” she says and quickly rolls her cart away.
    My heart aches as I realize I may be looking at my future.

Forrest on the Forest as a Tree Farm
(May 20)
    “Nice to see you! Nice to see you!” Lightning Bob calls to me. Flash runs down and herds me up the stairs as usual. When I reach the top, Lightning Bob pats me on the back and guides me into the tower with a fatherly hand on my shoulder.
    I sit at my usual place and study the calendar. It’s been an unusually dry May. No storms. No lightning.
    “Going to be a bad year for fires,” he says when he sees me studying the calendar. “Only May and already everything is as dry as bone.” He pauses and looks out toward the south. “Back before fire suppression, there used to be about twenty trees per acre out here. Fire would rip through and thin the weak ones out pretty regularly. Those fires didn’t burn hot, so the strong trees survived just fine. Now there are two hundred trees per acre out here. That’s a lot of fuel, my friend. That’s an uncontrollable inferno waiting to happen. We see firestorms now like we’ve never seen before—fire moving at fifty miles per hour—sometimes faster.” He puts the kettle on and strikes a match as he turns on the propane, then opens a window. “I look out there and feel this love for this land; it’s been my home for so many years. I’m the fourth generation in this tower. I know it’s only a matter of time, though. Each year that it doesn’t burn, the stakes get higher. It’s only a matter of time.”
    The look on my face must have revealed my feelings of horror