Chapter 39
Remember how I said I wouldn’t get pregnant? Remember how I begged the Lord, anything but that?
Yeah. Me too.
What’s that insipid little idiom that insipid little women love to say to one another when their lives take a turn for the unexpected?
If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans!
Ha! Hahahaha! Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Except I’m not laughing. I’m not smiling. I’m having a hard time even finding a way to formulate a prayer to the Lord that makes any coherent sense.
I try to stay calm. I walk around each day like a good little homesteader and I do my good little homesteader chores and bake my inedible little homesteader bread, and I swallow the rising panic that threatens to choke me out with each waking breath.
Do you hear me Lord? Do you see me
standing here, terrified? Not laughing?
Hello, Lord? Could you explain what
I’m supposed to learn, right now?
Hey, Lord! Just wanted to bother you for a quick sec.
See, I’m having some trouble with my assignment? And I was
wondering if you could give me something else to do instead?
The Lord does not reply.
There are no good days anymore, it seems. Only bad ones. When I tilt my face to catch the sunlight, I don’t feel His breath on my face. I don’t feel anything at all. I’m starting to feel like a woman who has been knocked up by a man who will no longer answer her calls.
It’s a test, I remind myself. For days, my mind has been nervously circling a single question: What happens if I fail the test? Except now, when I ask the question, I hear an echo of another one: What happens if I pass?