Free An Ornithologist's Guide to Life by Ann Hood Page A

on her jade green cashmere twin set for dinner. Now she slipped off the cardigan almost casually, tossing it on Peter’s lap.
    Dora closed her eyes and offered the man her arm. She thought of nothing. The first prick of the needle startled her with its burning pain.
    â€œOh,” she said, her eyes flying open.
    â€œThe outline’s the worst part, Gran,” Peter said.
    Dora took a breath and closed her eyes again. But each prick of the needle sent fresh tears down her cheeks. She heard herself panting, the way she had when she’d waited too long to get to the hospital to have Dan and arrived crouched on the floor of their Impala, like a wild animal.
    â€œUsually people have a few drinks before they come,” the man told her.
    â€œIt hurts,” Dora managed to say between needlepricks and tears. “It hurts so much.”
    The pain took over her body, her mind, it invaded every part of her: hot, sharp, constant. Until she was no longer separate from it. Only then could she stop crying, open her eyes, and continue.

AFTER ZANE

    A FTER Z ANE LEFT , I started to bake. Complicated cakes. Exotic éclairs. Soufflés and meringues and desserts with French names I couldn’t pronounce. I bought springform pans and candy thermometers, marzipan and candied violets. Everything I made was beautiful. So beautiful that I took photographs of each creation and hung them on my refrigerator, the way my mother used to hang my kindergarten art.
    The thing was, I never ate anything I made. Instead, I gave it away. My obstetrician had told me early on to avoid empty calories. All that sugar—brown and white—all that heavy cream and whipped cream and cream cheese added up to nothing but empty calories.
    â€œThis has got to stop,” said my best friend, Aurora, between bites of yellow butter cake with milk chocolate ganache frosting.
    I was eating a low-fat blueberry yogurt and waiting for my graham cracker pecan crust to chill properly. Outside the wind was blowing puffs of snow around like tumbleweed. I thought of tumbleweed, of prairie women, of being somewhere—anywhere—but Foster, Rhode Island, aloneand pregnant. I thought of all those Laura Ingalls Wilder books I used to love as a child. I wanted to be that brave and enduring.
    â€œI MEAN ,” A URORA was saying, “your neighbors are starting to hide from you. Who needs a different cake every day?”
    Now the snow was starting to look like spun sugar. Yesterday I had made a frozen cranberry soufflé with a spun-sugar wreath on top. In fact, it was still sitting out in the snow while I tried to decide what to do with it. As usual, Aurora was right. I was running out of people to give my culinary creations to.
    Aurora sighed and wiped some frosting off the rim of her plate with her finger. She had copper hair that fell to her shoulders in perfect ringlets, size six Easy Fit jeans, and just the right amount of freckles. Men did not leave Aurora.
    I pointed this out to her.
    She licked the frosting from her finger thoughtfully. “Joseph Russo,” she said finally, smugly.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œEighth grade,” she said. “Took his ID bracelet back in front of the whole school during assembly. It was so humiliating.” She looked panicked for an instant. “Not that you should feel humiliated, Beth,” she said. “You should feel . . . angry.”
    I nodded and went to check my crust. It was perfect.
    The wind howled, the snow swirled. Somewhere out there Zane was moving about his life without me. I restedmy head against the refrigerator, smack in the center of a photograph of my bourbon pecan pie. It had been, I was told, delicious.
    N INE MONTHS AFTER we met, eight months after he first said, “I love you,” seven months after we eloped, and six months before our baby was due to be born, Zane left me and went back to his ex-girlfriend, Alice.
    â€œBut you don’t love her,” I