Page 17 - WTP Vol.X#1

wives cursing the quirks of God, and once, a woman woke to a monkey perched so high on her inner thigh, she birthed the world’s tiniest child, renam- ing her The Sicilian Fairy and displaying that girl until, at nine years-old, she died.
What My Wife Did
My wife didn’t smoke and gave up alcohol. She moved dangerous household products to high shelves and padded the corners of furniture.
What My Wife Said
“Proactive is for the commonplace. Anxiety is for the rare.”
The Stone Child 2
Early that summer, a woman who worked with my wife told her that someone she knew had learned that the child she carried would die shortly after birth.
A doctor had listed the critical missing pieces in her unborn’s body as if, our small suburb mostly bare of animals, absence was the thing capable of harm. Al- though surprise was obsolete, she had chosen to carry hopelessness to term, her beliefs gathered to dust for the faint fingerprints of choice, that brief, good thing, her son’s impossible cry sung through her, pitched so high it sounded like breathing.
What Charmed Us
In Nigeria, babies are given water (to have no en- emies), palm oil (for a smooth, stress-free life), kola nut (for a long and healthy one), and salt and pepper (to keep things exciting and spicy).
In Pennsylvania, in that year before sonograms were commonplace, one doctor predicted a girl, born late, while one, laughing, said his colleague had graduated from the school of old wives’ tales.
Lesson Three: What’s been Asked of Wives
In the South American cultures where a multiple birth means the woman has cheated on her husband, what’s needed is a private, discreet disposal to save a marriage.
What’s good is getting to a private place before they’re born, letting each of them slide secretly into their birthdays, giving the chosen some comfort like heaven’s guide.
“I
n a book about anomalies,
I discovered the stone child, who remained curled twenty-eight years unborn within its mother’s belly.”
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