Free The Mother Garden by Robin Romm Page A

says to India. “I just need you to relax and scoot up on the table a little bit.” Nurse Practitioner Wu snaps on latex gloves, gets out a tube of KY, and smears some on the metal speculum.
    It’s a quick procedure—a tug and a yelp.
    â€œThat’s that,” India says. Her face is pale. Uri smooths back her hair.

    It’s all happening a little fast, this bright road to fertility. Uri still feels fragile from drinking too much last night, but he buys a six-pack of beer on the way home. Sitting at the kitchen table, he opens one and gazes at the egg in its box. It smiles stiffly. India comes in and grabs a beer. She straddles a chair and sits on it backward, resting her chin on the high wooden back. She tosses the bottle cap onto the table, then reaches out and touches Uri’s cheek. She’s going to try to seduce him. She’s pursing her lips. How can she not have noticed that the egg is different? When Uri looks at it, he can tell. He can see that the nose is way bigger than the nose he originally drew. The smile is wiggly, too. And what’s more, the old egg was a small egg and Blithe’s eggs were jumbo. This is a jumbo egg with a crooked smile and India is not noticing. She gets up off the chair and tilts her head back to take a swig of beer. She hiccups and then tosses herself in his lap, pressing her cold nose against his jaw. He slides his hand under her shirt for a minute, lets her start to kiss the side of his head.
    â€œI’m not into it right now,” he says, moving his legs so she’s not as close to him. India stops.
    â€œAll right,” she says, but it’s a hurt all right.
    He stays in the kitchen, working his way through the six-pack. He rolls the egg over. No little red mouth. That egg is gone. He’s tired from drinking, from Blithe’s rebuff, from the knowledge that he will have to go to work every day now in a state of semi-shame. And that’s not all. From the lawyer’s screaming, from the sight of India in stirrups, from the hurt way she walked out on him a half hour ago.
    There’s no way he can go through with it. She was right; he’s ruined the barbecue and he’s ruined the egg and he’s basically ruined his whole goddamned life.
    He goes out to the back deck and looks at the sky. It’s late fall and the days have gotten shorter. The backyard is becoming shadow and silhouette, navy and gray. The long leaves of the eucalyptus tree shudder. He brings the egg to his nose; it smells like Freon and plastic, like the inside of a refrigerator. He aims it at the eucalyptus and misses. The egg falls to the ground and cracks.
    Uri thinks of a farm out where his family used to vacation. The angry, cold eyes of the chickens kept there, the dank smell of bird shit in soil. He and Alvin used to swim in a nearby quarry. When they were old enough, they’d borrow his dad’s truck and speed down dirt roads. The dust streaked Uri’s skin and made his hair coarse. He thinks of Alvin running and plunging into bottomless gunmetal water. The way he would cry out, the splash and then the silence.
    India comes onto the porch.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” she asks, touching his back. She follows his gaze to the egg. He turns to her, ready to plead—for what, he’s not quite sure—when he sees that she’s laughing. “Oops,” she says. Her dark lashes shine in the last light of dusk.

THE TILT
    I T’S DAY TWO OF OUR FIVE-DAY VISIT TO MAINE AND Nick’s stepmother, Anna, has barely uttered a word to us. She sits in the center of the braided rug in lotus position, her body draped in a faded violet sweat suit. The room used to hold a giant loom, but it’s been moved to the garage. Now the room is empty save for a few low benches where candles burn and bundles of leaves sit, wrapped in embroidery floss.
    â€œJust ignore her,” Nick says. I follow him up the shiny wooden staircase to