This morning's writing

Lennon wasn’t so much planned as envisioned. They weren’t sure they wanted kids, but they both had their slight percentages of desire, the slivers of what-if. Gary was less vocal about it – because he was Gary – but still he would express the desire to do the things with his boy that you do with your boy, the basketball and football and music classes and whatnot. Ruth was never sure whether to expect a boy or girl or simply a dream unfulfilled, but it never stopped her from spinning it out in ideas and stories and thoughts.

The kid will be our kid and you know what that means. They won’t be able to put one foot in front of the other without tripping. They won’t be able to reach the top shelf without a stepladder. Clumsy midgets. This is why we can’t have kids.

Ruth called it her two percent. Gary’s margin was far slimmer. Most days it seemed that Lennon would not win the race to becoming. Instead they went to bars where drinks were alchemized into action, infused with needle droppers, offered with instructions. They threw down fifty, seventy-five at a time and walked away sober. They booked trips: Tokyo, Toulouse, Costa Rica. They gathered ink inside their passports and snatches of foreign languages in their vocabulary.

They adopted a cat. She lasted four months before running away, getting hit by a car, dying. They took this as a sign.