Second Chance. Elizabeth Wrenn

a young mother walking along the sidewalk, a baby on her chest in a carrier. Then the light changed and they flew behind us, along with the donut shops and dry cleaners. I had to blink back sudden tears. Heloise switched to moaning. My eyes became unseeing, as colors, shapes, and years flew by.

      The thing I remember most is clenching newborn Sam, still waxy and bloody from birth, to my chest. And I acutely remember them taking him away from me. Repeatedly. First they’d taken him from me to clean him up, weigh him, and who knows what. I felt like they’d pulled some vital body part out of me and disappeared with it. Which, of course, they had. Then they took him again ‘to let me sleep.’ But even with drugs, sleep eluded me. I pressed the buzzer and pleaded for my baby, till finally they’d wheeled him in in a Plexiglas bassinette, like my disembodied heart beating in a petri dish beside me. I longed to hold him, but I was too exhausted and in pain, and the nurse would not lift him out for me.

      ‘You need your sleep, doll,’ she’d said. ‘He’s fine in there.’ I was more assertive with Matt and then Lainey, often sleeping with them in my arms. I’ll never know if I would have slept if I had been able to hold Sam, but as it was, I spent all the dark hours of that newborn night with my neck bent toward him, watching him watching me. I never closed my eyes, much less slept. Nor did he. I lay in the dual company of my wakeful but quiet baby and the unshakable thought that I was doing something wrong before he was even a day old.

      ‘Yowww, yip, yip!’ Heloise’s mournful cries filled the car.

      ‘She’s a noisy girl, that one,’ said Bill, his eyebrows raised above his crinkling eyes and warm smile. But it was his hands, lightly gripping the steering wheel, where my gaze lingered. Long, rectangular backs, not too hairy; slender, strong fingers with clean square nails. I’d always been fascinated with hands. I’d fallen in love with Neil’s hands, when we’d first met. And Neil had loved my hands, too. ‘Strong but feminine,’ he’d said, on our third date, holding both of mine in both of his between two mugs of coffee at a Denny’s after a movie. ‘If I could have looked only at your hands to decide if I wanted to date you, the answer would have been yes,’ he’d said, then added softly, ‘and I would have been ecstatic when I saw all of you.’ Then he’d blushed apple red. I’d laughed, but my internal romance-o-meter just about blew off the dial.

      I shook my head, suddenly embarrassed that I’d even made a mental comparison between Bill and Neil. ‘She’s scared, I bet,’ I said, quickly responding to his comment about Heloise. I looked over my shoulder at the crates, self-consciously tucking my hair behind my ear. ‘It’s okay, girl,’ I cooed across the backseat. ‘It’s okay. There, there.’

      Both Lainey and Matt pulled up one earpiece of their headphones.

      ‘What?’ they both asked.

      ‘I’m talking to Heloise.’ I pointed over their shoulders. They both slid their pulsing headphones back over their ears.

      Heloise was looking right at me. ‘It’s okay, girl,’ I repeated, turning back around.

      Who was I kidding? It wasn’t okay. She’d been taken from her mother and now was in my care, and surely even her young, unrefined dog sense told her of my lack of experience, that my need for escape from my own existence had landed me in this canine terra incognita.

      I looked back again, careful to avoid eye contact with Matt and Lainey, and through the door of the other crate I could see little Donald, lying quietly on his side, gazing toward me, his expression for all the world looking the dog equivalent of embarrassed exasperation. He seemed to be thinking, Girls! Or maybe it was Labs!

      I was starting to feel carsick from looking backward. Twisting forward once again, I told Bill, ‘Donald seems to be doing fine.’

      ‘You know, Deena,’ Bill said, ‘Heloise might be picking up on your anxiety. They’re like kids that way. They instinctively tune in to whatever you’re feeling.’ He shot an encouraging smile my way.

      It was like he’d read my thoughts a moment ago. I’d often wondered if it was I who had kept Sam awake that night, and for many nights after, bathing him in my anxiety. It was an indisputable fact to me that I instilled fear more often than courage in my kids. They were always fine after they’d fallen if Neil was on the scene. But the moment I dashed over to their crumpled bodies on the sidewalk, the tears began. Too often, theirs and mine.

      ‘So what should I do?’

      ‘Just talk to me. Try to forget they’re back there.’

      Easier said than done with Heloise playing every part of The Backseat Opera. Plus, I didn’t know how to talk to men. I didn’t even talk to my husband anymore.

      ‘So, too bad about the Nuggets, eh?’ Oh, that was bright, Deena! I hated sports. I had just stated my sum total knowledge about Denver’s basketball team. Last night while chopping green pepper for the salad, I had overheard the television Matt was watching in the living room. The Nuggets had lost every road game and all but one at home this season. Even I knew that was bad.

      ‘Uh, I don’t really follow sports too much, Deena.’

      I smiled with relief. ‘Me either, actually.’ I bit my lip, thinking, as Bill merged onto the interstate. Kids! ‘Tell me about your kids, Bill.’ Parenting was a subject I could converse in. Or at least commiserate in. On the drive down, he’d obliquely mentioned having kids, so I knew we had that in common. Heloise had switched to barking now. I couldn’t help but smile, thinking that this little puppy was using ambulance logic, switching from siren wails to horn blasts to get people’s attention.

      ‘Oldest is twenty-eight and working for a high-tech firm in Denver.’ He spoke calmly, but just over Heloise’s volume. ‘Next is twenty-six and in grad school. Next is twenty-four and in seminary. Youngest is fourteen and getting an advanced degree in hormones.’ Bill chuckled, darting driver’s glances at me. He must have read my face, revealing active calculation occurring in my brain. Numbers are not my strong suit, so it pretty much always looks like I’m chewing on a lemon rind when I do mental math.

      ‘Yeah, there’s a big jump there,’ he said, nodding and smiling. ‘My wife, now ex, went through a kind of withdrawal and, to be honest, it was kind of a last-ditch attempt to save our marriage. Glad we had Macie though. She’s a pistol, but a lot of fun. She has strong opinions on everything and lets you know ’em. But she’s been the most hands-on with the pups.’

      I stared at this charming, handsome man next to me. This charming, handsome divorced man. Clearly after many years of marriage. I suddenly jerked upright, realizing I was twisting my wedding ring again, a nervous habit I’d had for the over two decades I’d worn it. But now a rush of guilt made me clasp my hands tightly in my lap for the remainder of the drive home.

       SEVEN

      Holding the surprisingly heavy and wobbling crate, I smiled weakly as Bill backed out of my driveway.

      ‘Okay, Heloise, we’re on our own,’ I told her. Matt and Lainey had already dashed inside, the door slamming behind them.

      I hauled the crate into the kitchen, trying hard not to bump against the doorframe or swing her around too much. But she was standing, or trying to, inside the crate, which made her boat rock even more. Finally, I set the crate down on the tile floor.

      ‘Let’s let her out!’ said Matt, his workout bag over his shoulder.

      ‘Are you going to the rec center?’ I asked.

      ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Are you going to let her out?’

      Lainey arrived, saw Matt’s bag, and said, ‘Wait for me, Matt. I want to go too.’ She ran upstairs.

      ‘Mom?’ said Matt. I looked at him. ‘The dog?’

      ‘Uhh, I think I’ll wait,’ I said, as Lainey came thunking down the stairs and into the kitchen. ‘Let