Lance Olsen - Girl Imagined by Chance

Then he met Branda, a wellness therapist from Arizona with a wide jaw who talked about crystals and the silver threads of love connecting humans in the same matter-of-fact inflections some people discuss how to use a wrench.

They married, moved to Paramus, and had a pallid-skinned red-haired girl named Bonita.

Paramus being another interesting word.

Paramus and wellness therapist .

Benn took a job with IBM in the PR department.

Branda led yoga classes.

Overnight, they rescripted their lives.

They had a pallid-skinned red-haired child and rewrote themselves.

They bought comfortable middle-age clothes and adopted the roles of loving middle-class parents.

Your friends are themselves.

Your friends are people you have never met before.

Andi mans the wall phone.

You sit at the kitchen table, cordless in hand.

Benn answers on the fourth ring.

After some small talk about your new life in Idaho, you ask him what it was like being pregnant.

A muffled exchange, and Branda joins the conversation on another line.

You know how people always talk about how magic it is? she asks without prelude. Hey, she says, the idea spreading through her. You guys aren’t…

We are, Andi says without skipping a beat.

You shoot her a look that contains surprise, discomfort, and genuine admiration.

Oh wow, Branda says.

You guys , says Benn on the other line.

Somewhere in the staticky background, Bonita enters the room and lets out what sounds like an Apache attack call.

So when’s the due date? Branda asks.

Listen, says Benn. I’m going to be honest with you guys here, okay? We were starting to worry about you. I mean, don’t get me wrong or anything. It would’ve been great if you decided not to do this. Only we kept imagining, you know, like all the things you’d be missing out on.

You’re going to make the best parents, says Branda.

You are, Benn agrees. Seriously.

This is so… I don’t know how to say it. This is just so incredible. Start from the beginning and tell us every single detail.

Andi starts making things up on the spot, telling them about how you two sat down one night and started talking and couldn’t believe it had taken you this many years to grow up and the doctor set the date for April and it is incredible, absolutely wild.

Except then you realize that neither Branda nor Benn is listening.

Palms more or less over mouthpieces, they are explaining to Bonita how it is already past her bedtime and how she should be running along to brush her teeth.

Can she show mommy and daddy what a good little girl she is and do that?

She cannot, it turns out.

She wants a soda and she wants it now.

She can’t have a soda because it’s bedtime, sweetie.

She’s thirsty and she wants a soda.

It’s bedtime, sweetie, and sodas contain white sugar and white sugar does horrible things to your mind and body, especially if you drink it this late in the evening.

Hello? Andi says, tentatively.

Their palms drop from the mouthpieces almost simultaneously.

Do you need some time out? Branda asks.

I don’t think so, you answer before you understand they are still talking to Bonita.

Hello? Andi repeats.

Bonnie. Come give daddy a huggly. Then it’s off to bed, okay?

You hear what you take to be bottles or cans clattering in an open refrigerator and then the refrigerator door thumps shut and a high-pitched squeal commences that makes the Apache attack call seem somehow self-effacing.

Bonita is accusing Branda of deliberately catching her first three fingers in the door.

Mommy didn’t see you behind her, sweetie, Branda says, voice high-frequency with guilt.

Mommy’s very sorry, Benn says. She didn’t see her princess standing there. Come give daddy a huggly. Seriously. He’ll kiss your booboo and make it better.

Hello? Andi says.

Through choking hiccups Bonita continues to accuse her mother of attempted infanticide.

In response Branda begins giving her things. Here are some Tootsie Rolls. Here is a fistful of LifeSavers. Have some ice cream. Have several gallons of Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, and Jolt. If you stop crying right now you’ll get something called a Wubby-Tubby Doll first thing in the morning and permission to stay up till next Tuesday.

Maybe this isn’t a good time, you suggest.

No way, Benn says, back again, unflappable as a Presbyterian on Sunday morning. It’s a perfect time. We wouldn’t miss it for the world. Gosh, this is so excellent. Only… don’t do that, okay?

Excuse me?

Bonnie. She’s picking up a… don’t do that, sweetie, okay?

Everything feels realer than real, Branda says out of nowhere. Like everything in your field of vision was just taken out of a packing crate.

Everything sparkles at the edges, says Benn.

I don’t know how to say it, but afterwards you, you know… you can’t imagine that you ever thought about anything else.

Honey, would you maybe do something? She’s… don’t do that, okay? Please. Seriously. It… Don’t do that.

What? you ask.

Branda is speaking in vocal gradations that imply none of what is actually going on is actually going on.

Then a glass breaks.

The squeal that you thought nothing could be louder than escalates into something approaching puling whale noises.

It’s true, Benn says. Think of what you might never have experienced if you stayed in that other dimension. Come here, sweetie. That’s what it’s like. It’s like stepping through a looking glass into this more vivid world. Come here, sweetie. Everything becomes significant. Everything becomes… Come here, sweetie.

We wouldn’t change a thing, Branda says, her voice so clear and calm it seems like she is murmuring inside your head.

You know what it’s like? It’s like, um… it’s like everything turns fluid. Everything takes on a special kind of… Your whole world, um… your whole world kind of…

One line goes dead, then the other.

The phone conversation is happening.

The phone conversation is done.

Andi and you study each other, she standing by the counter, you sitting at the kitchen table, trying to read each other’s wide-eyed expressions.

Within seventy-two hours, your eastcoast friends begin calling to congratulate you.

To congratulate you and to offer advice.

Word gets around that fast.

If you decide to use a midwife, they advise, you should make sure to ask her what her basic philosophy of childbirth is and what standard emergency equipment she carries.

Nor can one ever really say too much in favor of fruits, apparently.

Fruits, journals, and personal poetry.

Then again, maybe not.

While no one would deny that dads play an extremely important role during your baby’s development, the chief bond for the first two years will remain between mother and child.

Nor is it ever too late to become a vegan.

A vegan or a Unitarian.

Video rigs in childbed need not be as intrusive as they sound, you can and should establish a college fund for your child before he or she is out of the hospital, and it will not take as many weeks as you might think before you can reengage in sexual intercourse.

Circumcision.

Colic babies, sleepy babies, hungry babies, grumpy babies.

Circumcision is a serious question, it almost (but not quite) goes without saying.

Every year 1.2 million American boys lose their foreskin.

Circumcision and the manifold easy and enjoyable exercises available to get you and your uterus back into shape.

Sickly babies, angry babies, excited babies, sensitive babies.

No one would deny that.