I am afraid that if I lose sight of them for even an instant they will vanish in the claws of a vulture. At night I wonder if I could hear someone entering the house, then leaving with one of them. I live on a dirt road with a dog that barks at falling leaves and snowflakes. The miles of green and gold stretching around us cloak me in a sense of security. My fears are born in newspapers and books that tell more than I want to know about the hell human beings can wreak.
Awful things happen to kids, sometimes at the hands of their people they know.
That means me, in a bathing suit, in front of people I m likely to see in the grocery store. I used to pretend that these thighs were my secret, cleverly hidden in the folds of a long skirt or coat. So much for that delusion. Despite the magnitude of this sacrifice, I would not let him drown. Just in case, he reminded me every morning to hold him in the pool.