Free What Doesn't Kill You by Virginia DeBerry Page A

could skip the Lamaze refresher course. The bad news—most of my eggs were scrambled, but there were still enough good ones to fry my behind. I wrote a check for my copay and left with a handful of pamphlets about my “new stage of life” and a nonspecific bad attitude.
    So the last thing I wanted to see when I turned into my block was a crowd in my driveway. Not just neighbors—therewas a fire engine out front, behind the squad car with the slow-spinning red and white lights. The news van was around the corner. Didn’t they have some corruption to cover? My blood pressure was normal when Margo took it, but I’m sure it shot up in the high triple digits as I stepped out into the murky mist to find out what was going on at my house.
    Soon as I walked up, the crowd parted, giving me a prime view of the gigantic Norway spruce that had towered over my backyard, the tallest tree in what I considered my own little piece of forest. During my absence it keeled over—fell diagonally across my property and left a gaping hole where the roots used to be. I couldn’t believe it. The top reached out to the street where it was bound in yellow police tape.
    After determining I was the home owner, the sergeant proceeded to tell me how lucky I was. “That thing coulda come down on somebody’s roof, a car. It even missed your lawn furniture. Rain musta loosened it up and the wind just took it.” A lot like Dorothy and Toto. Then he said I had to clear it out of the road in forty-eight hours or face a summons.
    I thought I was pretty lucky too, until I called my insurance agent. Even though it made the storm-damage review on the evening news, she said that since there was no property loss, the removal was on me. Then she offered to review my coverage to see if I was adequately insured. Great. Do you know how much it costs to cart off a forty-foot tree? My lawn guy asked if I wanted it split for firewood, but soft wood makes smoky fires, so I just had him take it away. I’d buy some cherry when it was time to throw a log in the fireplace. Yes, it could have been a lot worse. It just wasn’t in my budget for the month. But I could handle it. And guess what showed up three days later—like I needed cramps and water retention on top of everything else.
    I managed to keep myself out of trouble for the next few weeks, did some things I’d been meaning to do—like get the car detailed, finish my Christmas shopping, organize the photographs I’d been stuffing in boxes for years. I arranged them chronologically in matching red leather albums so they’d look nice on the bookshelf in the den. And I gave in and got my eyes examined—bought some cute glasses too, because if my perimenopausal self needed reading glasses, they had to be cute. I never knew glasses could cost as much as jewelry. Good jewelry.
    A couple more pieces of Markson mail arrived, but I couldn’t bring myself to read them. I tried. I’d decide to rip open the envelope on the count of ten, but by nine I’d be too upset, so I’d chuck it back in the pile. I mean, normally I am very organized with my mail—sort it as soon as I walk in the door. Junk mail goes straight in the trash. Bills I file, and catalogs go in a basket by my bed for further browsing. Markson mail was none of the above. I wanted to write “Return to Sender” across the front but finally I decided I’d deal with it at the beginning of the new year. Out with the old, in with…something surprising. I loved surprises.
    And then Amber started asking me for Nana’s sweet-potato casserole recipe because she wanted all the traditional dishes at her first Thanksgiving dinner. There was never a recipe. I watched Nana make it, then Mom. Guess Amber was watching the Macy’s parade. You bake the sweet potatoes, mash them up and add butter, brown sugar, a handful of chopped pecans, crumbled bacon, pineapple, vanilla,