His mouth is dusky blue. His coughs are ragged, whistling on the inhales. He sounds like a barking seal. I read about it recently but can’t recall where. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I croon, rocking him, but I am shaking. I don’t remember ever feeling this scared. Only later will I remember the two photographs I unearthed a few months earlier—sepia prints mounted on cardboard—in my grandmother’s overfull suitcase.

When you want something badly enough, act as if the opposite holds true. Remember what happened last time: You got lax and loopy. You spun out of control, started dreaming of due dates and names, of what life would be like with a child in your arms. Then the numbers went down. Losing, lost. Going, gone. Sorry about that. We don’t know why this keeps happening.

Pam Pope was dark, athletic and lithe like a Slinky, with dark, Egyptian eyes and gravity-defying hair.  She lived in the house behind ours. To ease sisterly squabbling, we split her down the middle, and the system worked well for years. 

My great-uncle Howard plunged into the choppy surf of Hermosa Beach on a Sunday afternoon in 1929. The shore was littered with towels and umbrellas, families and picnic baskets. It must have felt like heaven to a boy of sixteen, churning through that salty-cool water. The push and pull, the weightlessness. Not noticing the tug of the tide, his growing distance from shore.

In the summer of my 11^th year, my little sister and I were shipped off to Camp Rim Rock, beside the leech-infested Cacapon River. I remember the overpowering outhouse smell and the gnat that flew into my ear, buzzing until it died. But what I remember best is “Obalaba Koobala,” one of those nonsensical chants of youth that burns into your brain and never leaves.

All that kicking inside of you meant he would be a world-class soccer player, your husband said. You talked about enrolling him in the local circus school. There would be piano lessons, maybe brass. Then you had to rethink things. You would be happy if he could simply point to an airplane flying overhead or let you know what he wanted for dessert. You would give anything if would just tell you whether he felt happy or sad.