Free The Things We Do for Love by Margot Early

snake and the copperhead on the same day, it had been a “snake year.”
    As he carried the recycling out to the car, leaves skittered past on the sidewalk and blew from the trees. It was time to put away the hoses. Five years ago, when he’d moved into the white house, he’d purchased some high-quality black garden hoses at Home Depot. For the past two years, he’d wished the hoses were green.
    He started the car, and the radio came on.
    “In the next ten minutes, we’ll have local news on the city council’s misuse of public funds and Mary Anne Drew talking about the magic of birth.”
    Graham gave the radio a look. He didn’t want to hear about the city council mischief. It did not involve the entire city council, just one councilwoman who had taken a private jet to San Francisco and stayed at the Fairmont for a national conference on municipal planning. David Cureux was not involved, and Grahamfound it appalling that a man who would remove a venomous snake from a watering can before killing it in order to preserve the three-dollar can should be accused of squandering anyone’s money. However, he wanted to hear what Mary Anne had to say on the magic of birth.
    The local news carried him over the Middleburg bridge and onto the highway. He’d thought of raking before he headed out, but he had to admit he liked looking at the newly fallen leaves on the lawn. He could rake tomorrow.
    “This week marks the hundredth anniversary of Logan County’s first hospital birth,” she began. “And I felt an irresistible urge to look at some of the births that have occurred here since then, including the births of both of my parents, my cousins, aunts and uncles, niece, my own grandmother…”
    Mary Anne wasn’t brilliant. This wasn’t even one of her more brilliant essays. Yet somehow, she always seemed to vividly depict Appalachian life, mesmerizing her audience. Now, she revealed that her mother had been born in the hospital here during a snowstorm and her father at the hospital on a summer’s day. She said that a cousin had almost died during childbirth. Not Cameron surely—must be another cousin. She’d talked to women out in hollows who had given birth at home, including one woman who talked about the convenience of breast-feeding her six children, saying, “I was the best dairy cow those kids could have had!”
    Maybe the essay was uninspired, but Mary Anne was fascinating. Suddenly Graham noticed he’d driven past the recycling center. With a sigh, he continued into town. Library first. And enough Mary Anne.
     
    J ONATHAN H ALE SMILED . “Good essay, Mary Anne. Just the kind of thing our listeners like to hear from you.”
    Our listeners. Was he saying the essay had no broader appeal? Possibly. They were alone together in the studio for the first time since his slightly altered behavior toward her on the weekend.
    “Damning me with faint praise?” she asked.
    “I think Graham’s show will be good for you,” he said. “You’re capable of so much more than what you’ve done, so far, in radio. You have a great voice, great presence. And face it, you come from show business stock.”
    Mary Anne detested being reminded of this. Her father was past it, now. His personal weaknesses were no longer tabloid worthy, as they had been when she was a child.
    Mary Anne pulled on her sweater-coat and swung her purse over her shoulder, then pulled out her cell phone to check for messages, lingering casually with one hip on Jonathan’s desk.
    Nearby, Jonathan leaned against the door of the recording booth. All Things Considered was under way. He asked, “Have you ever been married?”
    “Absolutely not,” Mary Anne said, not sure they’d been the right words or said the right way. “Why?”
    He gave a casual shrug. “I guess it’s usual for women to be more certain than men.”
    “I have no idea if left-at-the-altar statistics support that,” Mary Anne said. “You know, one of my girlfriends was getting