Christopher Ransom - The Birthing House

'Oh, Luther, you just can't stay out of trouble, can you?' Luther snored. 'So, you just found him at the pound?'

'No, no. It was a bit more than that. It took us six weeks to adopt him. This rescue group, Mighty Mutts. Run by a veterinarian, total non-profit. They don't mess around. They put us through a lot of waiting, came to our home, made us fill out a ton of forms. I kept calling, pleading my case. Jo was against it at first. She can't stand the hair on her clothes, if you can believe that. But I knew. I never wanted anything so bad as I wanted that dog. He's my boy.'

'Why'd it take so long?'

'The rescue people know. Dog bonds with his master. People will give up a dog like it's a hobby. A bag of garbage. You give him up it breaks his heart and he rarely gets over it. Lot of dogs walking around out there, nervous wrecks, all faith in life shattered. Some turn mean. But the ones that do get over it, they never forget. They love you like you have never been loved.'

Nadia watched him drink. He knew he was getting dopey-eyed, slurring a little.

'Luther never really got over his fear of walking, and he was destroying the house with the separation anxiety. People said medicate him, but that's not right. He was only a year old. We tried herbal supplements, more toys, a litter box, pads on the floor, short trips to the front porch, forcing him, letting him take his time. Jo said get rid of him. I told her she could leave anytime she wanted. Finally the rescue group said get another dog. Jo and I fought about that. A lot. We adopted Alice, who didn't have any fear. She helped Luther get over it in one day. He wouldn't leave her side, followed her right down the street.'

'So you saved two dogs' lives.'

'Best thing we ever did. Sometimes I think they are better than us.'

'You and your wife?'

'People. Better than people.'

They sat quietly for a minute. Nadia said, 'She couldn't have kids? Before, when you got the dogs?'

'I don't know that she ever wanted them.'

'But you did.'

'I never avoided it . . . I think it's better not to plan too much. You take what life gives you.'

'But eventually you need a plan,' she said.

'Like Seattle?'

'Hey now,' she said, scolding him. 'Unless you have a better one, Seattle it is.'

It came out light, but then she paused like she'd just realized what she'd said and she became very still. He'd never seen her look so scared.

'Nadia.' Conrad smiled and wagged his beer and set it down before rising from the floor. 'I want to show you something.'

Nadia followed him up the front stairs.

'Watch your step,' he said as much to himself as to Nadia. 'This banister is a hundred and forty years old.'

When they reached the guest room, he pushed the door open and pulled the switch on the safari lamp. Warm light filled the room, floating a halo over the crib.

'What do you think?' he said.

'Oh, Conrad. This is very nice. Did you do this by yourself?'

'Yes. You really like it?'

'It's more real than any room in the house.'

He liked that. 'Nadia?'

She turned and faced him in the doorway.

'We didn't . . . we were not together in any way. Not for months before we moved here, and we haven't been since. What she carries inside her, it did not come from me.'

'Come on. Don't say that.'

'It's the truth.'

'I'm sorry.'

'But I'm more worried about you,' he said, pulling at her shirt with two fingers. 'I told you I would help you.'

'Conrad. You're a nice guy. But I'm leaving soon.'

'You don't have to.'

'Yes, I do. And she's coming home, eventually.'

'There's another guy out there, in her room. I heard him. I don't think she is coming home. And maybe I don't want her to.'

Nadia shook her head slowly.

'Something is happening inside this house,' he said. 'And we are a part of it. Maybe fate. I don't care. I want to take care of you. I can't stop thinking about taking care of you.'

He leaned forward, his breath beery and loose. She stared up at him, unmoving. He kissed her on the mouth. Her lips hung open, undecided. Then her tongue pushed in first and he swooned, literally. She pushed him back against the wall, holding him up.

'You're kinda drunk,' she said.

'But I know what I know,' he said.

'And you're exhausted. Come on.'

She led him into the bedroom. She was so small in front of him. He could look right over her blonde hair and he wished he had the strength to lift her up and set her down on the bed, but he was too tanked to be gallant.

'Here.' She turned him sideways and he leaned over to kiss her again. She put one palm against his chest and pushed gently.

'My dogs.' He flopped on the bed, clothes and all. 'We can't leave them down there.'

'I'll watch them.'

'Promise?'

'Yes.' She turned off the light. 'I promise.'

'Nadia,' he said in the dark.

'What?'

'Don't leave me alone here. I won't make it without you.'

She lingered a minute, and he passed out before he could hear her walk away.

HOLLY

If you ask men when they are happiest, their first and rather unimaginative answer is usually something along the lines of, right after I come . And that is a peaceful time. All the fighting and working and wooing and pleading are past; the lucky man has been satisfied and done his best for her, and now the siren has him down. Time to drift and recharge and meet the world another day, which fills us up with more longing, anger and madness until we start all over again.

But remember I said happiest, not most peaceful. If someone were to ask me when I am happiest - have you guessed this by now? That our boy is me, that his story is my story? Of course you have, for you are a very bright girl who only happens to be a little lost, as he, as I, once was lost - I would answer, not at the end, when it has been done, but at the beginning. The moment when you know it is going to happen, and you have the whole event, in all its twists and turns and tests and mystery lying directly on the path ahead. And here I should add I am not speaking of sex, or not only of sex, though it was sex that taught me this. How I am most alive when I am standing on the precipice of the next beginning.

Consider the steamed lobster and melted butter and tender-loin and home-made bread are set before you by a kind waitress and you have not eaten all day. Consider iced tea with mint, its tall glass dewy with waiting for you to finish mowing the lawn on a hot July afternoon, that first bite as it washes over your scorched, panting tongue. The way the lighted Christmas tree looks when you come downstairs in padded feet to see all those gleaming boxes and ribbons and bows. The puppy whining in its crate that was put on this earth to be your best friend for the rest of his life, whether you prove him worthy or not. The smell of your crisp white Stan Smiths on the first day of school and how that fertile green emblem is going to telegraph to that one girl in the hallway exactly what you cannot find words to say, that you could have gotten any current style in the store but you are cool enough to have gone classic, old school, and this might be the year you become her boyfriend. That is what any good beginning does - takes you back to the moment when it was the first time, when it was all new, when you had nothing but new experiences in front of you and it was all magic.

Of all the beginnings, this night, in these strangers' home, though I could not know it then, I was standing on the precipice of the last and only true magic I would know until I found this house.

It was to be a miracle. What other miracles are there but beginnings? It is being born. And if birth is a miracle, it is a shame we cannot remember it. Because this I remember, and, in some ways, it was the moment I began to live.