Baby On Board Quotes

One word I’d use to describe space is lonely. The only way I’ll board a space shuttle is if I had a babysitter with me. You know, to watch the baby I’ll make with her.


For Jenn At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem. There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke. I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos, but I could never make dying beautiful. The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free. I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist. I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree, and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers, and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe. But my lungs remember the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat. And I knew life would tremble like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek, like a prayer on a dying man's lips, like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone… just take me just take me Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday. You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess and hope she knows you can hit a baseball further than any boy in the whole third grade and I've been running for home through the windpipe of a man who sings while his hands playing washboard with a spoon on a street corner in New Orleans where every boarded up window is still painted with the words We're Coming Back like a promise to the ocean that we will always keep moving towards the music, the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain. Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open. The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks. Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert, then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun. I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun. I know the heartbeat of his mother. Don't cover your ears, Love. Don't cover your ears, Life. There is a boy writing poems in Central Park and as he writes he moves and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart, and there are men playing chess in the December cold who can't tell if the breath rising from the board is their opponents or their own, and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn, and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun with strip malls and traffic and vendors and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home.

I KNEW IT WAS OVER when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring when you used to make the sun rise when trees used to throw themselves in front of you to be paper for love letters that was how i knew i had to do it swaddle the kids we never had against january's cold slice bundle them in winter clothes they never needed so i could drop them off at my mom's even though she lives on the other side of the country and at this late west coast hour is assuredly east coast sleeping peacefully her house was lit like a candle the way homes should be warm and golden and home and the kids ran in and jumped at the bichon frise named lucky that she never had they hugged the dog it wriggled and the kids were happy yours and mine the ones we never had and my mom was grand maternal, which is to say, with style that only comes when you've seen enough to know grace like when to pretend it's christmas or a birthday so she lit her voice with tiny lights and pretended she didn't see me crying as i drove away to the hotel connected to the bar where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had just because it shares your first name because they don't make a whisky called baby and i only thought what i got was what i ordered i toasted the hangover inevitable as sun that used to rise in your name i toasted the carnivals we never went to and the things you never won for me the ferris wheels we never kissed on and all the dreams between us that sat there like balloons on a carney's board waiting to explode with passion but slowly deflated hung slave under the pin- prick of a tack hung heads down like lovers when it doesn't work, like me at last call after too many cheap too many sweet too much whisky makes me sick, like the smell of cheap, like the smell of the dead like the cheap, dead flowers you never sent that i never threw out of the window of a car i never really owned

That's how I stay on top baby. i look at life from every position. I play from every side. you gotta know what each man on the board is thinking down to the littlest mutherfucker like the pawn

A word about TV: If a television is on, an infant will stare at it. This is not a sign of advanced development. TV entertains at a cost. Young children easily become dependent on the TV for stimulation and lose some of their natural drive to explore. A child with a plastic cup and spoon, a few wooden blocks, and a board book can think up fifty creative ways to use those objects; a child in front of a TV can only do one thing.

I wonder if I should get one of those baby-on-board signs. That way the assholes behind me can learn a little patience instead of laying on the horn like we’re all in some motherfucking emergency,” Tucker grumbles as he helps me out. “What’s going to happen when one of those fuckers comes to your door wanting to take Jamie out on a date?” Tucker stops abruptly, causing me to collide with his stiff back. “She’s going to an all-girls school.” “Okay, so what happens if one of those fuckers is a female wanting to take Jamie out on a date?” “None of this would be a problem,” he accuses, “if we stayed in the hospital like I suggested.

Dan Rosenthal rose happily from his drawing board to shake hands on hearing there was a baby on the way. But after that brief ceremony, when we'd both sat down again, he peered at me reflectively. "How can you be a father," he asked, "when you still look like a son?" 

We all spend our lives kicking the crap out of ourselves for not being this way or that way, not having this thing or that thing, not being like this person or that person. For not living up to some standard we think applies across the board to all of us. We all spend our lives trying to follow the same path, live by the same rules. I think we believe that happiness lies in following the same list of rules. In being more like everyone else. That? Is wrong. There is no list of rules. There is one rule. The rule is: there are no rules. Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be. Being traditional is not traditional anymore. It’s funny that we still think of it that way. Normalize your lives, people. You don’t want a baby? Don’t have one. I don’t want to get married? I won’t. You want to live alone? Enjoy it. You want to love someone? Love someone. Don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Don’t ever feel less than. When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it. No fairy tales. Be your own narrator. And go for a happy ending. One foot in front of the other. You will make it.

Mrs. Turner was a milky sort of a woman that belonged to child-bed. Her shoulders rounded a little, and she must have been conscious of her pelvis because she kept it stuck out in front of her so she could always see it. Tea Cake made a lot of fun about Mrs. Turners shape behind her back. He claimed that she had been shaped up by a cow kicking her from behind. She was an ironing board with things throwed at it. Then that same cow took and stepped in her mouth when she was a baby and left it wide and flat with her chin and nose almost meeting.

Grow up, Brett baby, I would share a lot of things with a lot of people, money, clothes, bed and board, even my last crust I'd be willing to share, but one thing I won't share is a man. You'd better believe it.

Richards remembered the day - that glorious and terrible day - watching the planes slam into the towers, the image repeated in endless loops. The fireballs, the bodies falling, the liquefaction of a billion tons of steel and concrete, the pillowing clouds of dust. The money shot of the new millennium, the ultimate reality show broadcast 24-7. Richards had been in Jakarta when it happened, he couldn't even remember why. He'd thought it right then; no, he'd felt it, right down to his bones. A pure, unflinching rightness. You had to give the military something to do of course, or they'd all just fucking shoot each other. But from that day forward, the old way of doing things was over. The war - the real war, the one that had been going on for a thousand years and would go on for a thousand thousand more - the war between Us and Them, between the Haves and the Have-Nots, between my gods and your gods, whoever you are - would be fought by men like Richards: men with faces you didn't notice and couldn't remember, dressed as busboys or cab drivers or mailmen, with silencers tucked up their sleeves. It would be fought by young mothers pushing ten pounds of C-4 in baby strollers and schoolgirls boarding subways with vials of sarin hidden in their Hello Kitty backpacks. It would be fought out of the beds of pickup trucks and blandly anonymous hotel rooms near airports and mountain caves near nothing at all; it would be waged on train platforms and cruise ships, in malls and movie theaters and mosques, in country and in city, in darkness and by day. It would be fought in the name of Allah or Kurdish nationalism or Jews for Jesus or the New York Yankees - the subjects hadn't changed, they never would, all coming down, after you'd boiled away the bullshit, to somebody's quarterly earnings report and who got to sit where - but now the war was everywhere, metastasizing like a million maniac cells run amok across the planet, and everyone was in it.

The timing of Thomas Lewis’ illness suggests one chilling alternative history. The Broad Street outbreak had subsided in part because the only viable route between the well and the neighborhood’s small intestines had run through the cesspool at 40 Broad. When baby Lewis died, the connection had died with it. But when her husband fell ill, Sarah Lewis began emptying the buckets of soiled water in the cesspool all over again. If Snow had not persuaded the Board of Governors to remove the handle when he did, the disease might have torn through the neighborhood all over again, the well water restocked with a fresh supply of V. cholerae. And so Snow’s intervention did not just help bring the outbreak to a close. It also prevented a second attack.

I remember she sang the opening aria from Her Last Nocturne and I saw the night sky pour out of her mouth. Every time I wemt to hear her sing afterward, even months afterward, I saw the same thing. Blackness and stars flooding her mouth and splashing onto the boards in great gouts. Galaxies and the void dripping off her chin. Her teeth burning. I told her about it on a night in December and she whispered I know it, baby. I see it, too. That's my insides coming out.

Surrounded by death and decay rotting from bones to bones, my flesh lays bare the blubbery fat, traverse the land i shall, finding babies to devour, performing rituals of ancient magic, I, the witch of yore… Beware! i wander these places with guile and pure vice, All of you shall be my victims, I, the witch of yore, eternal dweller of internet message boards.

It is believed that Revson is the author of the oft-quoted statement, uttered during one long working weekend to his subordinates, “If you don’t come in on Saturday, don’t bother to come in on Sunday.

In terms of their power over other adults, the sheer force of their monomaniacal self-interest and their utter lack of shame, they may be compared to only one other group of humans on the planet: babies.

The war—the real war, the one that had been going on for a thousand years and would go on for a thousand thousand more—the war between Us and Them, between the Haves and the Have-Nots, between my gods and your gods, whoever you are—would be fought by men like Richards: men with faces you didn’t notice and couldn’t remember, dressed as busboys or cab drivers or mailmen, with silencers tucked up their sleeves. It would be fought by young mothers pushing ten pounds of C-4 in baby strollers and schoolgirls boarding subways with vials of sarin hidden in their Hello Kitty backpacks. It would be fought out of the beds of pickup trucks and blandly anonymous hotel rooms near airports and mountain caves near nothing at all; it would be waged on train platforms and cruise ships, in malls and movie theaters and mosques, in country and in city, in darkness and by day. It would be fought in the name of Allah or Kurdish nationalism or Jews for Jesus or the New York Yankees—the subjects hadn’t changed, they never would, all coming down, after you’d boiled away the bullshit, to somebody’s quarterly earnings report and who got to sit where—but now the war was everywhere, metastasizing like a million maniac cells run amok across the planet, and everyone was in it.

The worst part was that the Brit’s reportage was just spleen-filled editorializing on the lack of ethics in the valley’s board-rooms (a favorite subject of hers, which no doubt accounted for his fellow-feeling), and it was also the crux of Kettlewell’s schtick. The spectacle of an exec who talked ethics enraged Rat-Toothed more than the vilest baby-killers. He was the kind of revolutionary who liked his firing squads arranged in a circle.

Titus, operating under the terms of the more modest package that he had negotiated with Gwen, which included room, board, and at the end of his own Candy Land path, the ambiguous pink-frosting-roofed gingerbread house of a family to love him and fuck him up, instantly got out of the car, observed the agreed-upon conventions of civilized intercourse among strangers, and got back into the car. The boy was still visiting their planet from his own faraway home world, but Archy figured that with time, he would adjust to the local gravity and microbes. Keeping close to the baby most of the time, as if Clark were the object he had crossed the stellar void to study.

lot of noises all at once, even if they are exclusively pleasant sounds, will always feel like an assault. So, the relentless cacophony of high school was constantly and unbearably overwhelming. And don’t get me started on the smell of it. Body sprays competed with hair sprays, which competed with the always over-deployed deodorants that still somehow managed to lose the war against the toxic bouquet of teenage body odour. Thank god I was a smoker; I might’ve perished otherwise. The other hurdle high school threw up at me was homework. I am not morally opposed to extracurricular curricula; I just didn’t have time for it. As in primary school, I needed my evenings to catch up on the things my brain had been unable to take on board during the day, not to mention recover from the sheer exhaustion of trying to subtly navigate a sea of hypercritical teens for hours on end. On top of that, the closer I got to being an adult and the further away from being a baby, the more chores I was expected to get done at home. These extra burdens, as reasonable as they were, led to my brain shutting down more and more, and, without my brain, learning became impossible.

I gladly gave my aunt the privilege of scraping off all gum so my job wasn’t as interesting or horrifying. I did find a few more menu drawings--a baby’s scribble, an elaborate tic-tac-toe board, and some stretched out stick figures that made me miss Addie again.

Not that parents are alone in their extreme behavior. That have more than enough company among school boards and high-ranking politicians who think if you "fix the schools, they'll fix the kids." So, in Gadsden, Alabama, school officials eliminated kindergarten nap time in 2003 so the children would have more test-prep time. Two hours away in Atlanta, school officials figured that if you eliminated recess, the kids will study more. And just in case those shifty teachers try to sneak it in, Atlanta started building schools without playgrounds. "We are intent on improving academic performance," said the superintendent. "You don't do that by having kids hanging on the monkey bars." Meanwhile, Georgia's governor wanted the state to give Mozart CDs to newborns because research showed Mozart improved babies' IQs (which later proved to be mythical research). Right behind him is Lincoln, Rhode Island, where they canceled the district spelling bee because only one child would win, leaving all others behind, thus violating the intent of No Child Left Behind--or, as they might say in Lincoln, no child gets ahead.

Bagpipe Music' It's no go the merrygoround, it's no go the rickshaw, All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow. Their knickers are made of crêpe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python, Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with heads of bison. John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa, Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker, Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey, Kept its bones for dumb-bells to use when he was fifty. It's no go the Yogi-Man, it's no go Blavatsky, All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi. Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather, Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna. It's no go your maidenheads, it's no go your culture, All we want is a Dunlop tyre and the devil mend the puncture. The Laird o' Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober, Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over. Mrs Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion, Said to the midwife 'Take it away; I'm through with overproduction'. It's no go the gossip column, it's no go the Ceilidh, All we want is a mother's help and a sugar-stick for the baby. Willie Murray cut his thumb, couldn't count the damage, Took the hide of an Ayrshire cow and used it for a bandage. His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish, Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish. It's no go the Herring Board, it's no go the Bible, All we want is a packet of fags when our hands are idle. It's no go the picture palace, it's no go the stadium, It's no go the country cot with a pot of pink geraniums, It's no go the Government grants, it's no go the elections, Sit on your arse for fifty years and hang your hat on a pension. It's no go my honey love, it's no go my poppet; Work your hands from day to day, the winds will blow the profit. The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall for ever, But if you break the bloody glass you won't hold up the weather.

The whole point of me not getting knocked up with the prince’s baby was to keep the gates closed, but we had to open them. Temporarily. And we’d need the Order for that. I had a suspicion baby Jesus was more likely to attend dinner tonight wearing suspenders than getting them on board with opening a gate.

It was the 2040s, the time of the uranium bust. Nobody was having babies; the military had its crude hands on all the crude oil; whole industries were reeling; just taking away the Mercedes limousines away from all those grey-templed hustlers who sat on their boards had thrown most U.S. corporations into tailspins

The executives that ran Lehman Bros. into the ground several years ago had a macho culture that abhorred personal time. One executive was pressured to go to the office while his wife was actually delivering a baby.[18] Whether such assiduity resulted in a better work product has now been pretty definitively ascertained.

Because now I know that everything bad can happen, and I am responsible for it not. Because sometimes I feel like keeping us from dying will kill me. Because I am on board, and I'm exhausted. Because I am on board, and I will never be used to being the driver. I still feel like the baby; like I could just cry this whole ride and never stop till we get home.

When I was in college, the board game RISK was popular for a while. We’d get stoned and I’d stare at the little plastic pieces moving across the territories and get utterly confused about allies and enemies, arguing that nothing could be that black and white, complicating the whole notion of the game. But I understand that estrogen is my enemy now, the very thing that made me big-busted and fertile and a terrific nurser, has turned on me, inside my milk ducts where my body incubated nourishment that made my babies pink cheeked and roly-poly thighed. It’s all so twisted and ironic and confusing. Tamoxifen, a hero and a hazard, my breasts, a giver and taker of life, and I, the protagonist and the antagonist in this story

a lot of noises all at once, even if they are exclusively pleasant sounds, will always feel like an assault. So, the relentless cacophony of high school was constantly and unbearably overwhelming. And don’t get me started on the smell of it. Body sprays competed with hair sprays, which competed with the always over-deployed deodorants that still somehow managed to lose the war against the toxic bouquet of teenage body odour. Thank god I was a smoker; I might’ve perished otherwise. The other hurdle high school threw up at me was homework. I am not morally opposed to extracurricular curricula; I just didn’t have time for it. As in primary school, I needed my evenings to catch up on the things my brain had been unable to take on board during the day, not to mention recover from the sheer exhaustion of trying to subtly navigate a sea of hypercritical teens for hours on end. On top of that, the closer I got to being an adult and the further away from being a baby, the more chores I was expected to get done at home. These extra burdens, as reasonable as they were, led to my brain shutting down more and more, and, without my brain, learning became impossible.

EVERYTHING SMELLED LIKE POISON. Two days after leaving Venice, Hazel still couldn’t get the noxious scent of eau de cow monster out of her nose. The seasickness didn’t help. The Argo II sailed down the Adriatic, a beautiful glittering expanse of blue; but Hazel couldn’t appreciate it, thanks to the constant rolling of the ship. Above deck, she tried to keep her eyes fixed on the horizon—the white cliffs that always seemed just a mile or so to the east. What country was that, Croatia? She wasn’t sure. She just wished she were on solid ground again. The thing that nauseated her most was the weasel. Last night, Hecate’s pet Gale had appeared in her cabin. Hazel woke from a nightmare, thinking, What is that smell? She found a furry rodent propped on her chest, staring at her with its beady black eyes. Nothing like waking up screaming, kicking off your covers, and dancing around your cabin while a weasel scampers between your feet, screeching and farting. Her friends rushed to her room to see if she was okay. The weasel was difficult to explain. Hazel could tell that Leo was trying hard not to make a joke. In the morning, once the excitement died down, Hazel decided to visit Coach Hedge, since he could talk to animals. She’d found his cabin door ajar and heard the coach inside, talking as if he were on the phone with someone—except they had no phones on board. Maybe he was sending a magical Iris-message? Hazel had heard that the Greeks used those a lot. “Sure, hon,” Hedge was saying. “Yeah, I know, baby. No, it’s great news, but—” His voice broke with emotion. Hazel suddenly felt horrible for eavesdropping. She would’ve backed away, but Gale squeaked at her heels. Hazel knocked on the coach’s door. Hedge poked his head out, scowling as usual, but his eyes were red. “What?” he growled. “Um…sorry,” Hazel said. “Are you okay?” The coach snorted and opened his door wide. “Kinda question is that?” There was no one else in the room. “I—” Hazel tried to remember why she was there. “I wondered if you could talk to my weasel.” The coach’s eyes narrowed. He lowered his voice. “Are we speaking in code? Is there an intruder aboard?” “Well, sort of.” Gale peeked out from behind Hazel’s feet and started chattering. The coach looked offended. He chattered back at the weasel. They had what sounded like a very intense argument. “What did she say?” Hazel asked. “A lot of rude things,” grumbled the satyr. “The gist of it: she’s here to see how it goes.” “How what goes?” Coach Hedge stomped his hoof. “How am I supposed to know? She’s a polecat! They never give a straight answer. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got, uh, stuff…” He closed the door in her face. After breakfast, Hazel stood at the port rail, trying to settle her stomach. Next to her, Gale ran up and down the railing, passing gas; but the strong wind off the Adriatic helped whisk it away. Hazel

You can't fix a problem by targeting its victims. Even if you hate fat people with all your heart, if you actually want to get us out of 'your' armrest space, defending out humanity is the only pragmatic solution. Because no matter how magnificently you resent them, you cannot turn a fat person into a thin person in time for the final boarding call (nor a full bladder into an empty one, nor a crying baby into a baked potato). The only answer is to decide we're worth helping.

From Venice to Rome, Paris to Brussels, London to Edinburgh, the Ambassadors watched, long-eared and bright-eyed. Charles of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor, fending off Islam at Prague and Lutherism in Germany and forcing recoil from the long, sticky fingers at the Vatican, cast a considering glance at heretic England. Henry, new King of France, tenderly conscious of the Emperor's power and hostility, felt his way thoughtfully toward a small cabal between himself, the Venetians and the Pope, and wondered how to induce Charles to give up Savoy, how to evict England from Boulogne, and how best to serve his close friend and dear relative Scotland without throwing England into the arms or the lap of the Empire. He observed Scotland, her baby Queen, her French and widowed Queen Mother, and her Governor Arran. He observed England, ruled by the royal uncle Somerset for the boy King Edward, aged nine. He watched with interest as the English dotingly pursued their most cherished policy: the marriage which should painlessly annex Scotland to England and end forever the long, dangerous romance between Scotland and England. Pensively, France marshalled its fleet and set about cultivating the Netherlands, whose harbours might be kind to storm-driven galleys. The Emperor, fretted by Scottish piracy and less busy than he had been, watched the northern skies narrowly. Europe, poised delicately over a brand-new board, waiting for the opening gambit.

bombs brought entire cities down to their knees today refugees boarded boats knowing their feet may never touch land again police shot people dead for the color of their skin last month i visited an orphanage of abandoned babies left on the curbside like waste later at the hospital i watched a mother lose both her child and her mind somewhere a lover died how can i refuse to believe my life is anything short of a miracle if amidst all this chaos i was given this life - circumstances

at eight A.M. We landed in Los Angeles five hours later, but our connecting flight was delayed for four hours. Well, L.A. time is two hours later than Hawaii time, so it was dinner hour when we boarded the next plane for another five-hour flight that actually put us in New York eight hours later, because of the three-hour time change. Then, after waiting forty-five minutes for our luggage, we took an hour-and-a-half limo ride from New York to Stoneybrook, Connecticut. Got all that? Okay, for the grand prize, what time was it when we walked

It’s baby math,” Catalina growled. “I could do this in my sleep in second grade.” Arabella ran out of blackboard space, crouched, and began dividing on the floor. “This is what we get for teaching them Common Core,” one of the arbiters said. “There is nothing wrong with Common Core,” someone else said. Arabella wrote, “This sucks!” on the floor and kept dividing. Finally, she stood up, wrote 124 on the board, and glared at the Keeper. Catalina slapped her hand over her face. “I say we take it,” Linus said. “Otherwise we might be here all night.

As the last passengers boarded the aircraft, the constant slamming of the overhead bins started to hurt Hero's ears. The infant began to cry, and everyone in the cabin glared in Jack and Goldilocks's direction. "Everyone is looking at us like we've personally offended them," Jack remarked. "It's because you brought a baby on a plane," Bree said. "They're worried he's going to cry the whole way to New York." Goldilocks was not going to put up with this. She passed Hero to Jack and stood in the aisle where all the passengers could see her. "Now, wait just one Hickory Dickory second," she called out. "I don't care if you have to listen to my baby cry! Eight days ago I experienced the worst pain humanly possible by pushing him out of my body! It's something all mothers must endure for the survival of our species! It's natural, it's brave, it's beautiful, and I will NOT be disrespected for it! Now, I suggest you all wipe those foul looks off your faces or YOU"LL be the ones crying all the way to New York!" "I'd listen to my wife if I were you," Jack added. "She's on caffeine." All the passengers quickly diverted their gazes elsewhere. Bree tried to start a round of applause for Goldilocks, but no one joined her.

The Falcon of Central Park West On the highest parapet of that castle like building I reside at on Central Park West, a falcon nests. I've reported this to the slavic doorman, the ASPCA, and to the presiding coop board, to no avail. This raptor launches from my parapet at blinding speed, sailing over Central Park like a kite, picking up baby squirrels and d-CON resistant rats to regurgitate to her fledglings. A first I thought her a nuisance, a stowaway on a luxury liner. But now I'm quite fond of my falcon, my avatar, doing what she's 'gotta do' to survive in New York, and keep her lofty crib in the castle just like the rest of us.

Get married and have halfbreed babies, manuscripts, home¬spun blankets and mother’s milk on your happy ragged mat floor like this one. Get yourself a hut house not too far from town, live cheap, go ball in the bars once in a while, write and rumble in the hills and learn how to saw boards and talk to grandmas you damn fool, carry loads of wood for them, clap your hands at shrines, get supernatural favors, take flower-arrangement lessons and grow chrysanthemums by the door, and get married for krissakes, get a friendly smart sensitive human-being gal who don’t give a shit for martinis every night and all that dumb white machinery in the kitchen.

Swift came to the table and bowed politely. “My lady,” he said to Lillian, “what a pleasure it is to see you again. May I offer my renewed congratulations on your marriage to Lord Westcliff, and…” He hesitated, for although Lillian was obviously pregnant, it would be impolite to refer to her condition. “…you are looking quite well,” he finished. “I’m the size of a barn,” Lillian said flatly, puncturing his attempt at diplomacy. Swift’s mouth firmed as if he was fighting to suppress a grin. “Not at all,” he said mildly, and glanced at Annabelle and Evie. They all waited for Lillian to make the introductions. Lillian complied grudgingly. “This is Mr. Swift,” she muttered, waving her hand in his direction. “Mrs. Simon Hunt and Lady St. Vincent.” Swift bent deftly over Annabelle’s hand. He would have done the same for Evie except she was holding the baby. Isabelle’s grunts and whimpers were escalating and would soon become a full-out wail unless something was done about it. “That is my daughter Isabelle,” Annabelle said apologetically. “She’s teething.” That should get rid of him quickly, Daisy thought. Men were terrified of crying babies. “Ah.” Swift reached into his coat and rummaged through a rattling collection of articles. What on earth did he have in there? She watched as he pulled out his pen-knife, a bit of fishing line and a clean white handkerchief. “Mr. Swift, what are you doing?” Evie asked with a quizzical smile. “Improvising something.” He spooned some crushed ice into the center of the handkerchief, gathered the fabric tightly around it, and tied it off with fishing line. After replacing the knife in his pocket, he reached for the baby without one trace of self-consciusness. Wide-eyed, Evie surrendered the infant. The four women watched in astonishment as Swift took Isabelle against his shoulder with practiced ease. He gave the baby the ice-filled handkerchief, which she proceeded to gnaw madly even as she continued to cry. Seeming oblivious to the fascinated stares of everyone in the room, Swift wandered to the window and murmured softly to the baby. It appeared he was telling her a story of some kind. After a minute or two the child quieted. When Swift returned to the table Isabelle was half-drowsing and sighing, her mouth clamped firmly on the makeshift ice pouch. “Oh, Mr. Swift,” Annabelle said gratefully, taking the baby back in her arms, “how clever of you! Thank you.” “What were you saying to her?” Lillian demanded. He glanced at her and replied blandly, “I thought I would distract her long enough for the ice to numb her gums. So I gave her a detailed explanation of the Buttonwood agreement of 1792.” Daisy spoke to him for the first time. “What was that?” Swift glanced at her then, his face smooth and polite, and for a second Daisy half-believed that she had dreamed the events of that morning. But her skin and nerves still retained the sensation of him, the hard imprint of his body. “The Buttonwood agreement led to the formation of the New York Stock and Exchange Board,” Swift said. “I thought I was quite informative, but it seemed Miss Isabelle lost interest when I started on the fee-structuring compromise.” “I see,” Daisy said. “You bored the poor baby to sleep.” “You should hear my account of the imbalance of market forces leading to the crash of ’37,” Swift said. “I’ve been told it’s better than laudanum.

Family is everything to him. When he was a young boy, he lost his mother and four sisters to scarlet fever, and was sent away to boarding school. He grew up very much alone. So he would do anything to protect or help the people he cares about." She hefted the album into Keir's lap, and watched as he began to leaf through it dutifully. Keir's gaze fell to a photograph of the Challons relaxing on the beach. There was Phoebe at a young age, sprawling in the lap of a slender, laughing mother with curly hair. Two blond boys sat beside her, holding small shovels with the ruins of a sandcastle between them. A grinning fair-haired toddler was sitting squarely on top of the sandcastle, having just squashed it. They'd all dressed up in matching bathing costumes, like a crew of little sailors. Coming to perch on the arm of the chair, Phoebe reached down to turn the pages and point out photographs of her siblings at various stages of their childhood. Gabriel, the responsible oldest son... followed by Raphael, carefree and rebellious... Seraphina, the sweet and imaginative younger sister... and the baby of the family, Ivo, a red-haired boy who'd come as a surprise after the duchess had assumed childbearing years were past her. Phoebe paused at a tintype likeness of the duke and duchess seated together. Below it, the words "Lord and Lady St. Vincent" had been written. "This was taken before my father inherited the dukedom," she said. Kingston- Lord St. Vincent back then- sat with an arm draped along the back of the sofa, his face turned toward his wife. She was a lovely woman, with an endearing spray of freckles across her face and a smile as vulnerable as the heartbeat in an exposed wrist.

A CITY IS AS much a state of mind as a place—a set of perceptions of place. On the last train home to Mullaghbrack or Gortyfarnham or half a hundred other BallyBogMans, two farmers fall to reviewing their experiences of the big city. One has walked the streets and avenues and come away with memories of glistening steeples and dreaming spires, monuments to men of bearing and import, Palladian porticos and grand civic cupolas, pillars, piers, and palisades, and the air full of singing birds. The other has walked the same streets, yet his memories are of grey brick tenements shouldering against each other like nervous thugs; cracked fanlights, windows boarded over with card, baby carriages full of coal or potatoes, tramps in doorways, cabbage leaves underfoot, the perfume of urine and porter, pressing people with voices like flatirons. They might have visited cities continents apart, but it is the same city.

I shoot up out of my chair. “It’s Bree. Hide the board!” Everyone hops out of their chairs and starts scrambling around and bumping into each other like a classic cartoon. We hear the door shut behind her, and the whiteboard is still standing in the middle of the kitchen like a lit-up marquee. I hiss at Jamal, “Get rid of it!” His eyes are wide orbs, head whipping around in all directions. “Where? In the utensil drawer? Up my shirt?! There’s nowhere! That thing is huge!” “LADY IN THE HOUSE!” Bree shouts from the entryway. The sound of her tennis shoes getting kicked off echoes around the room, and my heart races up my throat. Her name is pasted all over that whiteboard along with phrases like “first kiss—keep it light” and “entwined hand-holding” and “dirty talk about her hair”. Yeah…I’m not sure about that last one, but we’ll see. Basically, it’s all laid out there—the most incriminating board in the world. If Bree sees this thing, it’s all over for me. “Erase it!” Price whispers frantically. “No, we didn’t write it down anywhere else! We’ll lose all the ideas.” I can hear Bree’s footsteps getting closer. “Nathan? Are you home?” “Uh—yeah! In the kitchen.” Jamal tosses me a look like I’m an idiot for announcing our location, but what am I supposed to do? Stand very still and pretend we’re not all huddled in here having a Baby-Sitter’s Club re-enactment? She would find us, and that would look even worse after keeping quiet. “Just flip it over!” I tell anyone who’s not running in a circle chasing his tail. As Lawrence flips the whiteboard, Price tells us all to act natural. So of course, the second Bree rounds the corner, I hop up on the table, Jamal rests his elbow on the wall and leans his head on his hand, and Lawrence just plops down on the floor and pretends to stretch. Derek can’t decide what to do so he’s caught mid-circle. We all have fake smiles plastered on. Our acting is shit. Bree freezes, blinking at the sight of each of us not acting at all natural. “Whatcha guys doing?” Her hair is a cute messy bun of curls on the top of her head and she’s wearing her favorite joggers with one of my old LA Sharks hoodies, which she stole from my closet a long time ago. It swallows her whole, but since she just came from the studio, I know there is a tight leotard under it. I can barely find her in all that material, and yet she’s still the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen. Just her presence in this room feels like finally getting hooked up to oxygen after days of not being able to breathe deeply. We all respond to Bree’s question at the same time but with different answers. It’s highly suspicious and likely what makes her eyes dart to the whiteboard. Sweat gathers on my spine. “What’s with the whiteboard?” she asks, taking a step toward it. I hop off the table and get in her path. “Huh? Oh, it’s…nothing.” She laughs and tries to look around me. I pretend to stretch so she can’t see. “It doesn’t look like nothing. What? Are you guys drawing boobies on that board or something? You look so guilty.” “Ah—you caught us! Lots of illustrated boobs drawn on that board. You don’t want to see it.” She pauses, a fading smile hovering on her lips, and her eyes look up to meet mine. “For real—what’s going on? Why can’t I see it?” She doesn’t believe my boob explanation. I guess we should take that as a compliment? My eyes catch over Bree’s shoulder as Price puts himself out of her line of sight and begins miming the action of getting his phone out and taking a picture of the whiteboard. This little show is directed at Derek, who is standing somewhere behind me. Bree sees me watching Price and whips her head around to catch him. He freezes—hands extended looking like he’s holding an imaginary camera. He then transforms that into a forearm stretch. “So tight after our workout today.” Her eyes narrow.

The instinctive attraction of the daughters of high society to noble ideals was probably reinforced by an idea that, in dedicating themselves to the Church, they could escape the sometimes grim realities of marriage. It was not only the problem of volatile husbands raised in a society that prized aggressive masculinity and constant pregnancy; there was also the painful fact that only a few of the numerous babies would survive to adulthood. Against these harsh realities, the new monastic communities offered an appealing alternative, a rigid but somehow delicious atmosphere similar to that of a girls' boarding school. To a virgin, this must have seemed attractive, and to a teenage Roman widow weighing the dangers of a second marriage, it must have seemed positively utopian. And, of course, there was the chance to do good work. We should not underestimate the delight that these women found in being able to pool their resources in trying to better the lot of the city's poor.

Litter after litter was set down; lords and ladies were lifted out like precious jewels, and handed their lap dogs, their fans, or their parasols. Each seemed to have brought some toy or other; one young man had a monkey with its fur dyed blue. And yet, if you will believe it, out of all those men, the King’s daily companions fed at his board with his meat and wine, not one carried a sword. They all met and greeted, kissing cheeks or touching hands, talking together in the high clear voice of the Palace people. Their Greek was quite pure, but for the Cretan accent which sounds so mincing to a mainland ear. They have more words than we, for they talk continually of what they think and feel. But mostly one could understand them. The women called each other by such baby-names as we would use to children; and the men called them “darling” whether they were married to them or not; a thing which from their behavior nobody could guess. I saw one woman alone kissed by three men.

The California Board of Education provides, through its virtual libraries, a book intended for kindergarten teachers to read to their students: Who Are You? The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity by Brook Pessin-Whedbee.19 The author begins with a familiar origin story: “Babies can’t talk, so grown-ups make a guess by looking at their bodies. This is the sex assigned to you at birth, male or female.”20 This author runs the gamut of typical kindergarten gender identity instruction. Who Are You? offers kids a smorgasbord of gender options. (“These are just a few words people use: trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gender fluid, transgender, gender neutral, agender, neutrois, bigender, third gender, two-spirit….”) The way baby boomers once learned to rattle off state capitals, elementary school kids are now taught today’s gender taxonomy often enough to have committed it to memory. And while gender ideologues insist they are merely presenting an objective ontology, it is hard to miss that they seem to hope kids will pick a fun, “gender-creative”21 option for themselves.

I think Hannah had two brothers. Yes, I’m sure she did. Theo and, and--this boy.” I shook my head. “If he’s Hannah’s brother, why isn’t he in any of the other pictures?” Aunt Blythe didn’t answer right away. In the silence, rain pattered against the windows and dripped through holes in the roof. The wind crept in through cracks and stirred the folds of a long white dress hanging from the rafters. Finally, my aunt raised her eyes from the photograph. “I think his name was Andrew. Isn’t that strange? You share a face and a name with a boy who died years before you were born.” My throat tightened. “He died? Andrew died?” Aunt Blythe looked at me. “Oh, dear,” she said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” “I’m not scared!” My voice came out as high and squeaky as a girl’s. Furious at myself for being such a baby, I leapt to my feet and headed for the stairs. “Slow down, Drew,” my aunt called. “You’ll go through the floor!” Before the words were out of her mouth, a board split under my weight, and I fell flat on my face. In seconds my aunt was beside me. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Did you hurt yourself?” “I’m fine.” Too embarrassed to meet her eyes, I peered into the hole I’d made.

5236 rue St. Urbain The baby girl was a quick learner, having synthesized a full range of traits of both of her parents, the charming and the devious. Of all the toddlers in the neighbourhood, she was the first to learn to read and also the first to tear out the pages. Within months she mastered the grilling of the steaks and soon thereafter presented reasons to not grill the steaks. She was the first to promote a new visceral style of physical comedy as a means of reinvigorate the social potential of satire, and the first to declare the movement over. She appreciated the qualities of movement and speed, but also understood the necessity of slowness and leisure. She quickly learned the importance of ladders. She invented games with numerous chess-boards, matches and glasses of unfinished wine. Her parents, being both responsible and duplicitous people, came up with a plan to protect themselves, their apartment and belongings, while also providing an environment to encourage the open development of their daughter's obvious talents. They scheduled time off work, put on their pajamas and let the routines of the apartment go. They put their most cherished books right at her eye-level and gave her a chrome lighter. They blended the contents of the fridge and poured it into bowls they left on the floor. They took to napping in the living room, waking only to wipe their noses on the picture books and look blankly at the costumed characters on the TV shows. They made a fuss for their daughter's attention and cried when she wandered off; they bit or punched each other when she out of the room, and accused the other when she came in, looking frustrated. They made a mess of their pants when she drank too much, and let her figure out the fire extinguisher when their cigarettes set the blankets smoldering. They made her laugh with cute songs and then put clothes pins on the cat's tail. Eventually things found their rhythm. More than once the three of them found their faces waxened with tears, unable to decide if they had been crying, laughing, or if it had all been a reflex, like drooling. They took turns in the bath. Parents and children--it is odd when you trigger instinctive behaviour in either of them--like survival, like nurture. It's alright to test their capabilities, but they can hurt themselves if they go too far. It can be helpful to imagine them all gorging on their favourite food until their bellies ache. Fall came and the family went to school together.

My Father Comes Home From Work" My father comes home from work sweating through layers of bleached cotton t-shirts sweating through his wool plaid shirt. He kisses my mother starching our school dresses at the ironing board, swings his metal lunchbox onto the formica kitchen table rattling the remnants of the lunch she packed that morning before daylight: crumbs of baloney sandwiches, empty metal thermos of coffee, cores of hard red apples that fueled his body through the packing and unpacking of sides of beef into the walk-in refrigerators at James Allen and Sons Meat Packers. He is twenty-six. Duty propels him each day through the dark to Butcher Town where steers walk streets from pen to slaughterhouse. He whispers Jesus Christ to no one in particular. We hear him-- me, my sister Linda, my baby brother Willy, and Mercedes la cubana’s daughter who my mother babysits. When he comes home we have to be quiet. He comes into the dark living room. Dick Clark’s American Bandstand lights my father’s face white and unlined like a movie star’s. His black hair is combed into a wavy pompadour. He sinks into the couch, takes off work boots thick damp socks, rises to carry them to the porch. Leaving the room he jerks his chin toward the teen gyrations on the screen, says, I guess it beats carrying a brown bag. He pauses, for a moment to watch.

Cendrillon specialized in seafood, so we had four fish stations: one for poaching, one for roasting, one for sautéing, and one for sauce. I was the chef de partie for the latter two, which also included making our restaurant's signature soups. O'Shea planned his menu seasonally- depending on what was available at the market. It was fall, my favorite time of the year, bursting with all the savory ingredients I craved like a culinary hedonist, the ingredients that turned my light on. All those varieties of beautiful squashes and root vegetables- the explosion of colors, the ochre yellows, lush greens, vivid reds, and a kaleidoscope of oranges- were just a few of the ingredients that fueled my cooking fantasies. In the summer, on those hot cooking days and nights in New York with rivulets of thick sweat coating my forehead, I'd fantasize about what we'd create in the fall, closing my eyes and cooking in my head. Soon, the waitstaff would arrive to taste tonight's specials, which would be followed by our family meal. I eyed the board on the wall and licked my lips. The amuse-bouche consisted of a pan-seared foie gras served with caramelized pears; the entrée, a boar carpaccio with eggplant caviar, apples, and ginger; the two plats principaux, a cognac-flambéed seared sea scallop and shrimp plate served with deep-fried goat cheese and garnished with licorice-perfumed fennel leaves, which fell under my responsibility, and the chief's version of a beef Wellington served with a celeriac mash, baby carrots, and thin French green beans.

He missed the women he’d never get to sleep with. On the other side of the room, tantalizing at the next table, that miracle passing by the taqueria window giving serious wake. They wore too much make up or projected complex emotions onto small animals, smiled exactly so, took his side when no one else would, listened when no one else cared to. They were old money or fretted over ludicrously improbable economic disasters, teetotaled or drank like sailors, pecked like baby birds at his lips or ate him up greedily. They carried slim vocabularies or stooped to conquer in the wordsmith board games he never got the hang of. They were all gone, these faceless unknowables his life’s curator had been saving for just the right moment, to impart a lesson he’d probably never learn. He missed pussies that were raring to go when he slipped a hand beneath the elastic rim of the night-out underwear and he missed tentative but coaxable recesses, stubbled armpits and whorled ankle coins, birthmarks on the ass shaped like Ohio, said resemblance he had to be informed of because he didn’t know what Ohio look like. The size. They were sweet-eyed or sad-eyed or so successful in commanding their inner turbulence so that he could not see the shadows. Flaking toenail polish and the passing remark about the scent of a nouveau cream that initiated a monologue about its provenance, special ingredients, magic powers, and dominance over all the other creams. The alien dent impressed by a freshly removed bra strap, a garment fancy or not fancy but unleashing big or small breasts either way. He liked big breasts and he liked small breasts; small breasts were just another way of doing breasts. Brains a plus but negotiable. Especially at 3:00am, downtown. A fine fur tracing an earlobe, moles at exactly the right spot, imperfections in their divine coordination. He missed the dead he’d never lose himself in, be surprised by, disappointed in.

And then it sends a signal to turn off the system.” “So the universe with the wallet in the chamber waiting to be sent still exists,” added Allen. “But the universe from which it is actually sent never does.”  “That is just so messed up,” said Blake in exasperation, and Jenna, Walsh, and Soyer nodded their agreement. “Here is my advice to all of you,” said Cargill. “The best thing to do is ignore time travel, and don’t think about the paradoxes too hard. If you do, your head really will explode,” he added with a wry smile. “Just think of it as duplication and teleportation. But always keep in mind that the universe seems to go out of its way to ensure that infinite alternate timelines aren’t allowed. So no matter what, we only ever get this one universe.” He sighed. “So we’d better make sure we don’t screw it up.”     48   Brian Hamilton hated Cheyenne Mountain. Sure, it was one of the most interesting places in the world to visit, but living there only worked if you were a bat. The Palomar facility had also been underground, but nothing like this. It had a much larger security perimeter, so trips to the surface were easier to make happen. Not that it really mattered. Soon enough he would be traveling on another assignment anyway, living in a hotel room somewhere. But what he really wanted was to work side by side with Edgar Knight, toward their common goal. He was tired of being Knight’s designated spy, having to watch Lee Cargill squander Q5’s vast resources and capabilities. Watching him crawl like a wounded baby when he could be soaring. Cargill was an idiot. He could transform the world, but he was too weak to do it. He could wipe out the asshole terrorists who wanted nothing more than to butcher the helpless. If you have the ultimate cure for cancer, you use it to wipe out the disease once and for all. You don’t wield your cure only as a last resort, when the cancer has all but choked the life out of you. Edgar Knight, on the other hand, was a man with vision. He was able to make the tough decisions. If you were captain of a life raft with a maximum capacity of ten people, choosing to take five passengers of a sinking ship on board was an easy decision, not a heroic one. But what about when there were fifty passengers? Was it heroic to take them all, dooming everyone to death? Or was the heroic move using force, if necessary, to limit this number, to ensure some would survive? Sure, from the outside this looked coldhearted, while the converse seemed compassionate. But watching the world circle the drain because you were too much of a pussy to make the hard decisions was the real crime. Survival of the fittest was harsh reality. In the animal kingdom it was eat or be eaten. If you saw a group of fuck-nuts just itching to nuke the world back into the Dark Ages—who believed the Messiah equivalent, the twelfth Imam, would only come out to play when Israel was destroyed, and worldwide Armageddon unleashed—you wiped them out. To a man. Or else they’d do the same to you. It had been three days since Cargill had reported that he was on the verge of acquiring Jenna Morrison and Aaron Blake.

A knock at the enameled door of the carriage altered them to the presence of a porter and a platform inspector just outside. Sebastian looked up and handed the baby back to Evie. He went to speak to the men. After a minute or two, he came back from the threshold with a basket. Looking both perturbed and amused, he brought it to Phoebe. “This was delivered to the station for you.” “Just now?” Phoebe asked with a nonplussed laugh. “Why, I believe it’s Ernestine’s mending basket! Don’t say the Ravenels went to the trouble of sending someone all the way to Alton to return it?” “It’s not empty,” her father said. As he set the basket in her lap, it quivered and rustled, and a blood-curdling yowl emerged. Astonished, Phoebe fumbled with the latch on the lid and opened it. The black cat sprang out and crawled frantically up her front, clinging to her shoulder with such ferocity that nothing could have detached her claws. “Galoshes!” Justin exclaimed, hurrying over to her. “Gosh-gosh!” Stephen cried in excitement. Phoebe stroked the frantic cat and tried to calm her. “Galoshes, how . . . why are you . . . oh, this is Mr. Ravenel’s doing! I’m going to murder him. You poor little thing.” Justin came to stand beside her, running his hands over the dusty, bedraggled feline. “Are we going to keep her now, Mama?” “I don’t think we have a choice,” Phoebe said distractedly. “Ivo, will you go with Justin to the dining compartment, and fetch her some food and water?” The two boys dashed off immediately. “Why has he done this?” Phoebe fretted. “He probably couldn’t make her stay at the barn, either. But she’s not meant to be a pet. She’s sure to run off as soon as we reach home.” Resuming his seat next to Evie, Sebastian said dryly, “Redbird, I doubt that creature will stray more than an arm’s length from you.” Discovering a note in the mending basket, Phoebe plucked it out and unfolded it. She instantly recognized West’s handwriting. Unemployed Feline Seeking Household Position To Whom It May Concern, I hereby offer my services as an experienced mouser and personal companion. References from a reputable family to be provided upon request. Willing to accept room and board in lieu of pay. Indoor lodgings preferred. Your servant, Galoshes the Cat Glancing up from the note, Phoebe found her parents’ questioning gazes on her. “Job application,” she explained sourly. “From the cat.” “How charming,” Seraphina exclaimed, reading over her shoulder. “‘Personal companion,’ my foot,” Phoebe muttered. “This is a semi-feral animal who has lived in outbuildings and fed on vermin.” “I wonder,” Seraphina said thoughtfully. “If she were truly feral, she wouldn’t want any contact with humans. With time and patience, she might become domesticated.” Phoebe rolled her eyes. “It seems we’ll find out.” The boys returned from the dining car with a bowl of water and a tray of refreshments. Galoshes descended to the floor long enough to devour a boiled egg, an anchovy canapé, and a spoonful of black caviar from a silver dish on ice. Licking her lips and purring, the cat jumped back into Phoebe’s lap and curled up with a sigh.

My friends, daughter, my son Jim and I searched in the hospitals. I looked deep in the faces and even in the walls and grounds. I was looking for Richard in the crowd. My eyes were scanning all the people as mother suddenly noticed that she had lost her baby in a crowd. I was looking even in the faces of women. I looked for his name in the lists, frames, on the covers of books and magazines and even on the boards of the cars with sympathizing hope. In fact I was not looking for, I was begging.

Recht was destined to become his tireless assistant, sounding board, and guarantor of Cohen’s legitimacy.

Hey, Barry, climb off, motherfucker, I’m up next, then it’s Jeff’s turn. I put it on the board. Blue, don’t let him do that to your ear, baby, you won’t hear for a month.

Babies squeeze through the birth canal with only about two-thirds of their blood, which makes them a smaller package. The rest comes “on board” afterward through the cord. By waiting until the cord stops pulsing,13 the baby gets his full supply of blood.

In 2001, a report issued by the Truth Commission on Genocide in Canada maintained that the mainline churches and the federal government were involved in the murder of over 50,000 Native children through this system. The list of offenses committed by church officials includes murder by beating, poisoning, hanging, starvation, strangulation, and medical experimentation. Torture was used to punish children for speaking Aboriginal languages. Children were involuntarily sterilized. In addition, the report found that clergy, police, and business and government officials were involved in maintaining pedophile rings using children from residential schools. Former students at boarding schools also claim that some school grounds contain unmarked graveyards of murdered babies born to Native girls who had been raped by priests and other church officials. Since this abuse has become public, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has started a task force to investigate allegations of abuse in residential schools. By 2000, they had received 3,400 complaints against 170 suspects. Only five people were charged. By 2001, 16,000 Native people (which is 17 percent of living residential school alumni) had begun legal claims against the churches or government. Liability could run into billions of dollars, threatening some churches with bankruptcy.

El Al Boeing 747 took on board 1,087 immigrants; but when it landed, it carried 1,088 people. A baby had been born during the flight.

Taking a deep breath, Sailor decided to lay himself at her feet. "I was imagining the future and thinking of how if everything went according to plan, I'd have a very successful business with a high turnover." He made sure his hands were locked behind Ísa's back--just in case she decided to leave him in her dust a fourth time. "And since I'd be rich, I'd be able to buy houses and other nice things for my family." Ísa frowned. "I don't think your family expects that." "They don't exactly need my largess either," Sailor muttered. "But in my future fantasy, I'm buying everyone fancy cars and houses. Go with it." Ísa's lips twitched. "Okay, big spender. What else is fantasy Sailor doing?" "He's building a ginormous mansion. Swimming pool, tennis court, the works." "Is he hiring a buff personal masseuse named Sven?" "Hell no." He glared at her. "The masseuse is a fifty-year-old forner bodybuilder named Helga. Now, can I carry on?" Pretending to zip up her lips and throw away the key, Ísa made a "go on" motion. "Future Sailor is also creating a huge walk-in closet for you and filling it with designer shoes and clothes. He's giving you everything your heart desires." A flicker of darkness in Ísa's gaze, but she didn't interrupt... though her hands went still on his shoulders. "And there's a tricked-out nursery too," he added. "Plus a private playground for our rug rats." Throat moving, Ísa said, "How many?" It was a husky question. "Seven, I think." "Very funny, mister." "I'm not done." Sailor was the one who swallowed this time. "And in this fantasy house, future Sailor walks in late for dinner again because of a board meeting, and he has a gorgeous, sexy, brilliant wife and adorable children. But his redhead doesn't look at him the same anymore. And it doesn't matter how many shoes he buys her or how many necklaces he gives her, she's never again going to look at him the way she did before he stomped on her heart. Ísa's lower lip began to quiver, but she didn't speak. "I'm so sorry, baby." Sailor cupped her face, made sure she saw the sheer terror he felt at the thought of losing her. "I've been so tied to this idea of becoming a grand success that I forgot what it was all about in the first place--being there for the people I love. Sticking through the good and the bad. Never abandoning them." Silent tears rolled own Ísa's face. "But that great plan of mine?" he said, determined not to give himself any easy outs. "It'd have mean abandoning everyone. How can I be there for anyone when all I do is work? When I shove aside all other commitments? When the people I love hesitate to ask for my time because I'm too tired and too busy?" Using his thumbs, he rubbed away her tears. More splashed onto the backs of his hands, her hurt as hot as acid. "Spitfire, please," he begged, breaking. "I'll let you punch me as many times as you want if you stop crying. With a big red glove. And you can post photos online." Ísa pressed her lips together, blinked rapidly several times. And pretended to punch him with one fist, the touch a butterfly kiss. Catching her hand, he pressed his lips to it. "That's more like my Ísa." He wrapped his arms around her again. And then he told her the most important thing. "I realized that I could become a multimillionaire, but it would mean nothing if my redhead didn't look at me the way she does now, if she expected to have to take care of everything alone like she's always done--because her man was a selfish bastard who was never there." Ísa rubbed her nose against his. "You're being very hard on future Sailor," she whispered, her voice gone throaty. "That dumbass deserves it," Sailor growled. "He was going to put his desire to be a big man above his amazing, smart, loving redhead.

It felt fantastic to be back filming again, and it made me realize how much I missed it. The crew represented our extended family. I never once caught a feeling of annoyance or impatience at the prospect of having a six-day-old baby on set. To the contrary, the atmosphere was one of joy. I can mark precisely Bindi Irwin’s introduction to the wonderful world of wildlife documentary filming: Thursday, July 30, 1998, in the spectacular subtropics of the Queensland coast, where the brilliant white sand meets the turquoise water. This is where the sea turtles navigate the rolling surf each year to come ashore and lay their eggs. Next stop: America, baby on board. Bindi was so tiny she fit on an airplane pillow. Steve watched over her almost obsessively, fussing with her and guarding to see if anything would fall out of the overhead bins whenever they were opened. Such a protective daddy. Our first shoot in California focused on rattlesnakes and spiders. We got a cute photo of baby Bindi with a little hat on and a brown tarantula on her head. In Texas she got to meet toads and Trans-Pecos rat snakes. Steve found two stunning specimens of the nonvenomous snakes in an abandoned house. I watched as two-week-old Bindi reacted to their presence. She gazed up at the snakes and her small, shaky arms reached out toward them. I laughed with delight at her eagerness. Steve looked over at me, as if to say, See? Our own little wildlife warrior!

Please tell me we don’t have to go all the way upstairs for a condom,” she said. “Back pocket.” She leaned with him as he fished it out, then tried to help him get his jeans down over his hips. Her foot hit the coffee table, which snagged on the throw rug and sent the Scrabble tiles sliding all over the board. She laughed as he tore open the condom packet. “Now nobody wins.” “I was ahead.” He put one hand on her hip, using the other to guide himself into her. “So I win.” Emma moaned as he filled her, bracing herself against the couch with a hand on either side of his head. “The game wasn’t over. It’s a draw.” He pulled down on her hips as he drove up into her, making her gasp. “Ties are for pussies. Admit I won.” She looked down into his blue eyes, crinkled with amusement as he grinned at her. God, she loved…having sex with this man. “One good word isn’t a victory.” “That’s not what the score sheet said.” He stopped moving, and when she tried to rock against him, he held down on her hips so she couldn’t move, either. Then he had the nerve to chuckle at her growl of sexual frustration. “Admit it. I can sit here all night.” “Oh, really?” She went straight for a known weak spot—nipping at his earlobe before sucking it into her mouth. He let go of her hips with one hand, intending to push her mouth away, but she rocked her hips. He groaned and put his hand back. She breathed softly against his ear and then ran her tongue along the outside. “Admit I was going to win,” she whispered, “because I can do this all night.” With one leg, he kicked at the table, sending it over and the letter tiles flying. Before Emma could react, she was on her back on the throw rug with Sean between her legs and her hands held over her head. “I don’t lose.” He crossed her wrists so he could hold them with one hand, then used the other to pull her leg up over his hip so he was totally buried in her. “Give up?” She shook her head, but couldn’t hold back the sigh as he oh, so slowly withdrew almost completely and then just as slowly filled her again. “You’re cheating.” He did it again and again, the slow friction delicious and frustrating, until they were both trembling and on the edge. Then, as he was pulling out of her once again with a self-control that made her want to scream, it became a matter of life or death, because she was going to die if she didn’t get what her body was looking for. “Okay, fine. You win.” He drove into her hard, his fingers biting into her wrists before he released them so he could lift her legs to her shoulder. She cried his name as his fingers dug into her hips and he gave them what they both wanted. When he collapsed on top of her, breathing hard against her neck, she wrapped her legs and arms around him, holding him close. “Another one for the win column,” he said once they’d caught their breath. “It has an asterisk, though, because you totally cheated.” “All’s fair in sex and Scrabble, baby.” He propped his head on his hand and smiled down at her. “What should we play next?” “I’ve still got clothes on. You’ve still got clothes on. Maybe we should break out a deck of cards.” “You’re my kinda girl, Emma Shaw,” he said, and thankfully, he was in the process of getting up off the floor, because she didn’t think she did a good job of hiding how happy those words made her.

Juniper lifts her chin, looks down her crooked nose at Agnes. “I’m not working on some factory. I already told you: I’m signing up with the suffrage ladies. I’m going to find that tower. Fight for something.” It’s such a youngest-sister thing to say that Agnes wants to slap her. In the witch-tales it’s always the youngest who is the best-beloved, the most-worthy, the one bound for some grander destiny than her sisters. The other two are too ugly or too selfish or boring to get fairy godmothers or even beastly husbands. The stories never mentioned boarding house rent or laundry or aching knuckles from a double-shift at the mill. They never mentioned babies that needed feeding or choices that needed making. Agnes swallows all those horseshit stories. “That’s all well and good but causes don’t pay much, I heard. They don’t feed you or give you a place to sleep.

On one particular night, I was determined to get a half-decent night of sleep because I had a big meeting at work the next morning, where I was talking to the school board about the special education program at our school. It was a really, really important meeting, and I didn’t think I could get through it on an hour of sleep. I pumped Emma full of two bottles of milk, hoping she’d conk out, but knowing it was a crapshoot. I told Noah about the meeting and emphasized how important it was. I had to get a decent night of sleep. He swore he understood. So when Emma woke up screaming at two in the morning, I expected him to get up with her. “I’ve got a headache, Claire,” he mumbled into his pillow. “Can’t you get her?” I had a headache too. I had a headache almost all the time these days, as well as big purple circles under my eyes. Skipping out on my parental duties was never an option. “You know I have a big meeting tomorrow.” Noah squeezed his eyes shut. After a long minute of Emma’s cries increasing in volume, he got out of bed. And slammed the door shut behind him when he left the bedroom. Just as the cries subsided and I started to drift off again, the screams abruptly started again. A few seconds later, Noah came back into the bedroom. He flopped down on the bed and covered his head with the pillow. “I can’t deal with her,” he said. “You have to do it.” “But I told you, I have a meeting tomorrow!” “Well, I have a headache. I’m not getting up.” And that was it, as far as he was concerned. He acted like Emma was my baby, he was doing me a favor by trying to help, but if he didn’t want to do it, he didn’t have to. I remember staring at him in the dark bedroom, waiting to see if he would change his mind. He didn’t budge. I had to get up and spend the rest of the night comforting Emma. He never apologized for that one. Even though I was a wreck at my meeting the next day, and he ended up sleeping in after I dropped Emma and Aidan off at daycare. It was so incredibly unfair. After that, it seemed like we were at war more and more frequently. He never carried his weight when it came to the children and the housework, and what’s worse, he didn’t care. He told me all I did was nag him. We stopped doing things together as a family—I preferred to go out with the kids myself so I didn’t have to watch him play with his phone instead of talking to me. And we never did anything together as a couple. I can’t remember our last date night. For a while, we were making an effort to get a babysitter and go out, but I can’t remember the last time either of us even suggested it. I kept telling myself things would get better as the kids got older. But now they’re older. And it turned out, our marriage got too broken to fix.

He watched her pace the floor in her bare feet---the floor she'd scrubbed clean seven times now from the mess and afterbirth of new babies. She'd gotten out the stains [...] in the floor she was pacing now, walking up and down the ordinary wooden boards with bare feet like Moses at the burning bush. Like something sacred had happened there; holy ground.

As Karen returned from the restroom, the gate agent explained the order of boarding: People with disabilities or in wheelchairs, people over the age of 100, people who act like they’re over the age of 100, families with children (children are two-year olds and younger, not fifteen-year olds), in-uniform military personnel, first class, business class, platinum frequent flyer members, gold members, silver members, bronze members, associate members, people who just applied for the airline’s credit card five minutes ago, group 1, groups 2 through 10 in that order, and finally, anyone too clueless to figure out how to get into one of the groups already called. We had “group 8” boarding passes. We felt smug as we pushed our way past the five remaining passengers who were lower on the boarding list than us. I don’t like being trapped in a small place, such as an airplane, with a large cross-section of humanity. I think airlines should announce before every flight, “Listen up people. We’re all sealed in here together for the next four hours, so try not to be annoying until the flight is over. Once you exit the plane, then you can whistle, hum, fart, snore, talk baby talk, take your shoes off and put on as much bad perfume as you want.” I think this would make air travel more bearable. We arrived in El Paso with enough time to pick up the rental car, have dinner (at Carlos and Mickey’s) and buy groceries for the week: peanut butter, jelly, bread, water, blue corn chips, peppermint patties, animal crackers and beer.

You think Dad wanted to psuh an orderly cart all these years?" Mom demands. "He did it to put food on our table." Because the state licensure board wouldn't honor his medical degree from China without him going through a residency he couldn't afford with a wife and baby on the way. Because this world crushes all our dreams. I know; God, I know. This time, she doesn't add what she often does: But it's worth it. You got to grow up in America. You'll have opportunities we can't even dream of.” And grown up I have, knowing that it falls to me, as the elder child, to earn back the cost of two lives.

You think Dad wanted to push an orderly cart all these years?" Mom demands. "He did it to put food on our table." Because the state licensure board wouldn't honor his medical degree from China without him going through a residency he couldn't afford with a wife and baby on the way. Because this world crushes all our dreams. I know; God, I know. This time, she doesn't add what she often does: But it's worth it. You got to grow up in America. You'll have opportunities we can't even dream of.” And grown up I have, knowing that it falls to me, as the elder child, to earn back the cost of two lives.

you think Dad wanted to push an orderly cart all these years?" Mom demands. "he did it to put food on our table." Because the state licensure board wouldn't honor his medical degree from China without him going through a residency he couldn't afford with a wife and baby on the way. Because this world crushes all our dreams. I know; God, I know. This time, she doesn't add what she often does: But it's worth it. You got to grow up in America. You'll have opportunities we can't even dream of.

H, you’re a workaholic. Are you going to be at it all night?” He grinned though his eyes never left the screen. “Oh, precious, work is not what I’ll be at all night. But I need a few minutes to send this new proposal to the board before I can devote my attention to you. Do you mind?” “Take your time. I’ll get ready for bed.” I lowered the lights as he had the night before, then took advantage of his distraction and retrieved the sexy nightie I’d brought with me before slipping into the bathroom. I didn’t hurry as I undressed, taking the opportunity to shave and apply lotion before slipping on the red lace halter baby-doll I’d purchased on Friday afternoon. The halter-top accentuated my breasts, an area of my body that Hudson appreciated. I removed the ponytail holder from my hair and let it spill around my shoulders in a seductive mess. I brushed my teeth and applied a thin layer of strawberry lip gloss. When I was satisfied with my appearance, I opened the door to the bedroom and posed in the doorway, waiting for Hudson’s reaction. I was met with quiet snoring. With his hands still propped on his open laptop, Hudson had fallen asleep, fully dressed. I sighed, debating how to address the situation. Of course I wanted him awake, but he wouldn’t have fallen asleep like that if he wasn’t truly worn out. Plus, I had to remind myself, night was my time of day—not his. Gently, I slipped the computer from his grasp and placed it on the nightstand. The movement didn’t disturb him in the least—he was out. I decided to let him sleep, but as for myself, I wasn’t in the least bit tired. I wondered if Jack was still awake—maybe we could play another round of poker, though being alone with the man wasn’t entirely a great idea. I peered out the window and saw the guesthouse was dark. Probably for the best.

My Pinterest includes boards of my future wedding, my dream house, and pins of random babies dressed up for Halloween. Basically, all my deepest desires.

I’m falling in love with you, darling.” I murmur. “Don’t, love has a way of changing to hate,” she whispers fearfully, and I lift my head. It’s my turn to hold her. “We started with hate, baby, I don’t think it’s going to go the other way for us. Love can hurt, I know that. But it also gave me those stories, which I treasure to this day. Anyway, it’s not something you can stop, Rox. It’s happening, so get on board.” I wink, making her laugh. “Idiot.” “Ahh, it’s better than asshole, which is what you usually call me.” “Oh, you’re still that too,” she whispers, as I kiss her again.

Did I develop my own set of random assumptions by utilizing the very little information available to me? For example, Leo Vodnik had held a magazine titled Construction Engineering Australia. Men are ten times more likely than women to die at work. Is that all it took for me to predict a “workplace accident” as his cause of death? Ethan Chang had his arm in a cast. Was it his injury that made me choose “assault,” together with the fact that injury and violence is a leading cause of death for young adult men? I know I watched Kayla Halfpenny at the airport and saw her knock over her drink and then her phone. Was it my observation of the sweet girl’s clumsiness together with the fact that road traffic injuries are one of the leading causes of death among young adults that led me to say “car accident”? Did I simply make random choices? Is that what led me to pancreatic cancer, the most feared cancer, for the vibrant woman who reminded me of my friend Jill, and breast cancer for the pregnant woman? Did I temporarily believe I was Madame Mae? I must have been thinking of my mother, because I kept saying “fate won’t be fought.” Had I somehow become a strange alchemy of the two of us? Both of us, after all, specialized in predictions. There are certain events in my life that I believe may have had a profound effect on me. For example: the little boy who drowned at the blowhole when I was a child. I have never forgotten the sound of his mother screaming. That boy had brown eyes and dark hair. When I saw that dear little brown-eyed, dark-haired baby, did I think of that poor boy and therefore predict the baby would drown at the same age? Did I look at the young bride, Eve, and remember the charming woman who came to my mother for readings, who was so excited about her forthcoming wedding, the first wedding I ever attended? Did I think of the time I saw her at the shops, her inner light snuffed out, and remember how she died in a fire believed to have been lit by her husband? Why did I choose self-harm for Allegra, the beautiful flight attendant? Was it simply that I saw repressed pain in her eyes from the back injury I now know she suffered on that flight? Was it because I knew the rate of suicide in young females has been steadily increasing over recent years? Was I thinking of death as I boarded the plane and contemplating the fact that everyone on that plane would one day die, and wondering what their causes of death would ultimately be? Well. That’s the only one of my questions I can answer with certainty. Of course I was thinking of death. I had my husband’s ashes in my carry-on bag. I was missing my two best friends. I was thinking of every person I had ever lost throughout my life.

It's not that we haven't had our own activists and friends in the public-health community in the United States working diligently to increase rates of breastfeeding; it's that we have allowed a health-care industry responsible only to corporate boards of directors and stockholders to take the place of what should be a health-care system designed for the benefit of all of our people. A profit-driven health-care industry has no reason to care about increasing breastfeeding rates (or doing anything else to promote health, for that matter), as doing so will do nothing to boost anyone's profits. I consider it a national embarrassment that our Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has never been able to collect solidly accurate statistics on breastfeeding rates for the first year of our babies' lives through any of its agencies.

Although Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter is a supporter of President Obama, I’m assuming that he’s not on board with the President’s ambitious initiatives. Regarding absentee fathers, Nutter stated, “Part of the problem in the black community—in many communities, but in particular, the black community—is there are too many men making too many babies and we don’t wanna take care of your children. We’re not a babysitting service; we’re a government.

I can't wait, Mom!" Exclaimed Marc, but I could tell he wasn't feeling as excited as he wanted his parents to think he was. I know because I've done that with my parents. Sometimes you have to protect parents and their feelings.

It's over. I can't believe it. Back to boring old life.

Oh, easy,” said Janine. “It was George Herman. That’s it. I won!” “Cheater!” I cried. “You looked! You must have looked!” “I did not,” Janine retorted. “I just knew it.” “Nerd!” Janine slammed the board shut and walked off in a huff.

A great majority of Americans are going to resist you know. They’ll resist all of this government spending and putting people on the government dole. What do I do about that?” Johnson asked, worriedly. “If you begin to have a backlash, I propose you expand the involvement in Vietnam, and have the Department of Defense draft a lot of young men whose families lean anti-government or are religious in nature. Of course, you’ll also get young men who are part of the establishment, which I’ll use later on to bring about more control over the American people. I’ll get my people to whip anti-authority types into a frenzy, have them accuse returning soldiers of being baby killers, or I’ll get them to cause riots, and maybe a couple of them will terrorize parts of the United States. That will give you the distraction you need to get our agenda passed. No one, not even future Republicans, will attempt to take it out of the books as the law of the land. Are you on board?” “You bet your bottom dollar I am. I look forward to informing Congress and the Nation about what I plan on doing. This should be interesting times.

Scenes from the Playroom Now Lucy with her family of dolls Disfigures Mother with an emery board, While Charles, with match and rubbing alcohol, Readies the struggling cat, for Chuck is bored. The young ones pour more ink into the water Through which the latest goldfish gamely swims, Laughing, pointing at naked, neutered Father. The toy chest is a Buchenwald of limbs. Mother is so lovely; Father, so late. The cook is off, yet dinner must go on With onions as her only cause for tears She hacks the red meat from the slippery bone, Setting the table, where the children wait, Her grinning babies, clean behind the ears.

A new day. She will face it tomorrow, for Maya’s sake. Along with the awakening sea, along with the rest of Bombay—the street urchins and the stray dogs, the impoverished nut vendors and the woman selling six cauliflowers a day, the hollow-eyed slum dwellers and the chubby-cheeked residents of nearby skyscrapers, the office workers spilling out of the trains at Churchgate and the young children boarding creaky school buses, the old men groaning on their deathbeds and the babies tumbling forth from the dark wombs of their mothers—along with the entire gigantic metropolis, with all its residents crawling along their individual destinies like an army of ants pretending to be an army of giants—along with Banubai in her damp bed, and Serabai in her shattered world, and Viraf baba with his choking guilt, and Maya with her tentative, hesitant dreams, and yes, along with Gopal and Amit waking up in a distant land to the smell of loamy earth, like all of them, the millions of people she has not met and the few she has—she, too, will face a new day tomorrow. Tomorrow. The word hangs in the air for a moment, both a promise and a threat. Then it floats away like a paper boat, taken from her by the water licking her ankles. It is dark, but inside Bhima’s heart it is dawn.

Louise Galling was on board the Slocum as a baby nurse caring for her employer’s young children, and she survived on basic instinct: "I had no thought, of what might happen to me. I had never swum a stroke in my life, and I didn't know the slightest thing about how I should begin. I only knew one thing, and that was that I must save the babies. So I took one in each arm and jumped overboard and kicked out with my feet and held them up as best I could. I did not care whether I could swim or not. I only knew that if I didn't I would not save the children. I struggled on through the water and got to the shore. I didn't know how, and I guess I never will, but I saved the babies.

Like agreeing to learn the doggy paddle and being shoved off the high-dive board. And to keep things interesting, somebody told Bobby, Kevin’s youngest nephew, the baby could hear stuff, and he was determined to make his new cousin his BFF in utero. It was a bit disconcerting having a kid randomly tell bad jokes to her stomach. Like now. “Why did the weasel cross the road?” he yelled at her belly button. “To prove it wasn’t a chicken!

Professor Craig Franklin of the University of Queensland mounted a crocodile research partnership with Steve. The idea was to fasten transmitters and data loggers on crocs to record their activity in their natural environment. But in order to place the transmitters, you had to catch the crocs first, and that’s where Steve’s expertise came in. Steve never felt more content than when he was with his family in the bush. “There’s nothing more valuable than human life, and this research will help protect both crocs and people,” he told us. The bush was where Steve felt most at home. It was where he was at his best. On that one trip, he caught thirty-three crocs in fourteen days. He wanted to do more. “I’d really like to have the capability of doing research on the ocean as well as in the rivers,” he told me. “I could do so much more for crocodiles and sharks if I had a purpose-built research vessel.” I could see where he was heading. I was not a big fan of boats. “I’m going to contact a company in Western Australia, in Perth,” he said. “I’m going to work on a custom-built research vessel.” As the wheels turned in his mind, he became more and more excited. “The sky’s the limit, mate,” he said. “We could help tiger sharks and learn why crocs go out to sea. There is no reason why we couldn’t help whales, too.” “Tell me how we can help whales,” I said, expecting to hear about a research project that he and Craig had in mind. “It will be great,” he said. “We’ll build a boat with an icebreaking hull. We’ll weld a can opener to the front, and join Sea Shepherd in Antarctica to stop those whaling boats in their tracks.” When we got back from our first trip to Cape York Peninsula with Craig Franklin, Steve immediately began drawing up plans for his boat. He wanted to make it as comfortable as possible. As he envisioned it, the boat would be somewhere between a hard-core scientific research vessel and a luxury cruiser. He designed three berths, a plasma screen television for the kids, and air-conditioned comfort below deck. He placed a big marlin board off the back, for Jet Skis, shark cages, or hauling out huge crocs. One feature that he was really adamant about was a helicopter pad. He designed the craft so that the helicopter could land on the top. Steve’s design plans went back and forth to Perth for months. “I want this boat’s primary function to be crocodile research and rescue work,” Steve said. “So I’m going to name her Croc One.” “Why don’t we call it For Sale instead?” I suggested. I’m not sure Steve saw the humor in that. Croc One was his baby. But for some reason, I felt tremendous trepidation about this boat. I attributed my feelings of concern to Bindi and Robert. Anytime you have kids on a boat, the rules change--no playing hide-and-seek, no walking on deck without a life jacket on. It made me uncomfortable to think about being two hundred miles out at sea with two young kids. We had had so many wild adventures together as a family that, ultimately, I had to trust Steve. But my support for Croc One was always, deep down, halfhearted at best. I couldn’t shake my feeling of foreboding about it.

Maybe it was my condition, but I was even more sensitive about cruelty to wildlife. When we journeyed to New Zealand to protest whale hunts, we viewed a documentary about whales attacking the whaling ships, trying to defend the females and their young. Whales are like elephants of the sea. They have family structures, mannerisms, and habits that are similar to our own. In the midst of this very emotional work in Wellington, I felt the baby move for the first time. Soon the baby was dancing around inside me both day and night. All my checkups came back favorable, and the doctor said Steve was more than welcome to glove up and help deliver the baby when the time came. Until then, though, there was stacks of filming to be done. We filmed sharks just off the Queensland coast, near where Steve’s parents had retired. Some of the crew were typical Aussie blokes. As soon as I got on board and they saw that I was very obviously pregnant, they decided to embark on “Project Spew.” To attract sharks, they mixed up a large container of chum--a gory stew made of fish oil, blood, fish skeletons, and offal. The crew would pass it right underneath my nose in an effort to make me sick. I countered them by sitting down and eating lunch right next to the putrid-smelling chum container. I knew they couldn’t break me!

Now, Tom had seemed like a decent guy when we watched him during track practice, and seeing that sign on the bulletin board had given us a clue that he had a good heart, too. But it was almost as if he knew we needed more convincing. And by the time we lost him—just a few streets away from our block—we were positive he couldn’t be the same guy who had robbed Speedy Jack’s. In fact, he turned out to be the nicest, most polite, most civic-minded boy I’ve ever seen. Here’s what we saw him do: He spotted a dog wandering into the road and stopped to coax it onto the sidewalk. He helped a little old lady across the street (really!), holding his hand up to stop traffic for her. He hopped off his skateboard and bent down to tie a child’s shoe. The mother (whose arms were full of groceries) looked like she wanted to hug him. He gave directions to a motorist, nodding politely at all her questions. He picked up litter from the sidewalk and threw it into a trash can. He stopped to admire a baby in its carriage. It was while he was cooing over the baby that Sunny gave me a disgusted look. “Are we wasting our time, or what?” she asked. I giggled. “Somehow I find it hard to believe he could swat a fly, much less hold up a store.” When Tom finished with the baby, he straightened up, stepped back onto his skateboard, and zipped around a corner. We let him go. Sunny sighed. “He’ll make some girl a fine husband one day,” she said, with a straight face. Then we cracked up. We were still laughing about it a half hour later, when Jill and Maggie showed up at Sunny’s for our party-planning session. We told them all about “Saint Tom,” as we’d begun to call him.

His Reluctant Lover

List of Elizabeth Lennox Books   The Texas Tycoon’s Temptation   The Royal Cordova Trilogy Escaping a Royal Wedding The Man’s Outrageous Demands Mistress to the Prince   The Attracelli Family Series Never Dare a Tycoon Falling For the Boss Risky Negotiations Proposal to Love Love's Not Terrifying Romantic Acquisition   The Billionaire's Terms: Prison Or Passion The Sheik's Love Child The Sheik's Unfinished Business The Greek Tycoon's Lover The Sheik's Sensuous Trap The Greek's Baby Bargain The Italian's Bedroom Deal The Billionaire's Gamble The Tycoon's Seduction Plan The Sheik's Rebellious Mistress The Sheik's Missing Bride Blackmailed by the Billionaire The Billionaire's Runaway Bride The Billionaire's Elusive Lover The Intimate, Intricate Rescue   The Sisterhood Trilogy The Sheik's Virgin Lover The Billionaire's Impulsive Lover The Russian's Tender Lover The Billionaire's Gentle Rescue   The Tycoon's Toddler Surprise The Tycoon's Tender Triumph   The Friends Forever Series The Sheik's Mysterious Mistress The Duke's Willful Wife The Tycoon's Marriage Exchange   The Sheik's Secret Twins The Russian's Furious Fiancée The Tycoon's Misunderstood Bride   Love By Accident Series The Sheik's Pregnant Lover The Sheik's Furious Bride The Duke's Runaway Princess   The Russian's Pregnant Mistress   The Lovers Exchange Series The Earl's Outrageous Lover The Tycoon's Resistant Lover   The Sheik's Reluctant Lover The Spanish Tycoon's Temptress   The Berutelli Escape Resisting The Tycoon's Seduction The Billionaire’s Secretive Enchantress   The Big Apple Brotherhood The Billionaire’s Pregnant Lover The Sheik’s Rediscovered Lover The Tycoon’s Defiant Southern Belle   The Sheik’s Dangerous Lover (Novella)   The Thorpe Brothers His Captive Lover His Unexpected Lover His Secretive Lover His Challenging Lover   The Sheik’s Defiant Fiancée (Novella) The Prince’s Resistant Lover (Novella) The Tycoon’s Make-Believe Fiancée (Novella)   The Friendship Series The Billionaire’s Masquerade The Russian’s Dangerous Game The Sheik’s Beautiful Intruder   The Love and Danger Series – Romantic Mysteries Intimate Desires Intimate Caresses Intimate Secrets Intimate Whispers   The Alfieri Saga The Italian’s Passionate Return (Novella) Her Gentle Capture His Reluctant Lover Her Unexpected Admirer Her Tender Tyrant Releasing the Billionaire’s Passion (Novella) His Expectant Lover   The Sheik’s Intimate Proposition (Novella)   The Hart Sisters Trilogy The Billionaire’s Secret Marriage The Italian’s Twin Surprise The Forbidden Russian Lover   The War, Love, and Harmony Series Fighting with the Infuriating Prince (Novella) Dancing with the Dangerous Prince (Novella)

You good?” “Yeah. Okay. Good.” “Now, I’m going to be right here to tell you what to do, and I’ll help you steer if you start running us off the road.” I revved the gas pedal and then placed her foot on it and let her do the same. I could tell she was trying not to bail off of my lap—her body was practically vibrating with nerves—but she didn’t. She stayed, listening intently. I gave her basic instructions, and then I helped her ease onto the road, going about five miles per hour. She didn’t move her hands from two and ten o’clock, and I had to tug at the wheel slightly to straighten us out. And then we picked up speed, just a bit. “How does that feel?” “Like falling,” she whispered, her body rigid, her arms locked on the wheel. “Relax. Falling is easier if you don’t fight it.” “And driving?” “That too. Everything is easier if you don’t fight it.” “What if someone sees us?” “Then I’ll tell you when to wave." She giggled and relaxed slightly against me. I kissed her temple where it rested against my cheek, and she was immediately stiff as a board once more. Shit. I hadn’t thought. I’d just reacted. “I would have patted you on the back, but your forehead was closer,” I drawled. “You’re doin’ it. You’re drivin’.” “How fast are we going?” she said breathlessly. I hoped it was fear and not that kiss. “Oh you’re flyin’, baby. Eight miles an hour. At this rate, we will reach Salt Lake in two days, my legs will be numb, and Henry will want a turn. Give it a little gas. Let’s see if we can push it up to ten.” She pressed her foot down suddenly and we shot forward with a lurch. “Whoa!” I cried, my arms shooting up to brace hers on the wheel. I saw Henry stir from the corner of my eye. “Danika Patrick is the first female NASCAR driver to ever win a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole,” he said woodenly, before slumping back down in his seat. I spared him a quick glance, only to see his eyes were closed once more. Millie obviously heard him and she hooted and pressed the gas pedal down a little harder. “Henry just compared you to Danika Patrick. And he obviously isn’t alarmed that you’re driving because he’s already asleep again.” “That’s because Henry knows I’m badass.” “Oh yeah. Badass, Silly Millie. ‘Goin’ ninety miles an hour down a dead-end street,’” I sang a little Bob Dylan, enjoying myself thoroughly.

America today is not the same nation as when you were born. Depending on your age, if you were born in America, your home nation was a significantly different land than it is today:   ·                    America didn’t allow aborting babies in the womb; ·                     Same sex marriage was not only illegal, no one ever talked about it, or even seriously considered the possibility; (“The speed and breadth of change (in the gay movement) has just been breathtaking.”, New York Times, June 21, 2009) ·                    Mass media was clean and non-offensive. Think of The I Love Lucy Show or The Walton Family, compared with what is aired today; ·                    The United States government did not take $500 million dollars every year from the taxpayers and give it to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. ·                    Videogames that glorify violence, cop killing and allow gamesters who have bought millions of copies, to have virtual sex with women before killing them, did not exist. ·                    Americans’ tax dollars did not fund Title X grants to Planned Parenthood who fund a website which features videos that show a “creepy guidance counselor who gives advice to teens on how to have (safe) sex and depict teens engaged in sex.” ·                    Americans didn’t owe $483,000 per household for unfunded retirement and health care obligations (Peter G. Peterson Foundation). ·                    The phrase “sound as a dollar” meant something. ·                    The Federal government’s debt was manageable.            American Christian missionaries who have been abroad for relatively short times say they find it hard to believe how far this nation has declined morally since they were last in the country. In just a two week period, not long ago, these events all occurred: the Iowa Supreme Court declared that same sex marriage was legal in the State; the President on a foreign tour declared that “we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation…” and a day later bowed before the King of the nation that supplied most of the 9/11 terrorists; Vermont became the first State to authorize same sex marriage by legislative action, as opposed to judicial dictate; the CEO of General Motors was fired by the federal government; an American ship was boarded and its crew captured by pirates for the first time in over 200 years; and a major Christian leader/author apologized on Larry King Live for supporting California’s Proposition 8 in defense of traditional marriage, reversing his earlier position. The pace of societal change is rapidly accelerating.

ONE OF the first gifts I received after my older son was born was a baby book from an old friend, a mom of two who still lives in the small Michigan town where she and I grew up. The gift both welcomed my son and acknowledged that I was living in New York City now, a place very different from the one where she and I spent our childhoods. Urban Babies Wear Black is a whimsically illustrated board book that lists, with the succinctness of a five-minute sociology lecture, exactly how urban babies are different—starting with their outfits (black

• While a female flight attendant was serving food from the meal cart, a female passenger thrust a small bundle of trash toward her. “Take this,” the passenger demanded. Realizing that the trash was actually a used baby diaper, the attendant instructed the passenger to take it to the lavatory herself and dispose of it. “No,” the passenger replied. “You take it!” The attendant explained that she couldn’t dispose of the dirty diaper because she was serving food—handling the diaper would be unsanitary. But that wasn’t a good enough answer for the passenger. Angered by her refusal, the passenger hurled the diaper at the flight attendant. It struck her square in the head, depositing chunks of baby dung that clung like peanut butter to her hair. The two women ended up wrestling on the floor. They had to be separated by passengers. • Passengers on a flight from Miami to San Juan, Puerto Rico, were stunned by the actions of one deranged passenger. He walked to the rear of the plane, then charged up the aisle, slapping passengers’ heads along the way. Next, he kicked a pregnant flight attendant, who immediately fell to the ground. As if that weren’t enough, he bit a young boy on the arm. At this point the man was restrained and handcuffed by crew members. He was arrested upon arrival. • When bad weather closed the Dallas/Fort Worth airport for several hours, departing planes were stuck on the ground for the duration. One frustrated passenger, a young woman, walked up to a female flight attendant and said, “I’m sorry, but I have to do this.” The passenger then punched the flight attendant in the face, breaking her nose in the process. • A flight attendant returning to work after a double-mastectomy and a struggle with multiple sclerosis had a run-in with a disgruntled passenger. One of the last to board the plane, the passenger became enraged when there was no room in the overhead bin above his seat. He snatched the bags from the compartment, threw them to the floor and put his own bag in the space he had created. After hearing angry cries from passengers, the flight attendant appeared from the galley to see what the fuss was all about. When the passengers explained what happened, she turned to the offending passenger. “Sir, you can’t do that,” she said. The passenger stood up, cocked his arm and broke her jaw with one punch. • For some inexplicable reason, a passenger began throwing peanuts at a man across the aisle. The man was sitting with his wife, minding his own business. When the first peanut hit him in the face, he ignored it. After the second peanut struck him, he looked up to see who had thrown it. He threw a harsh glance at the perpetrator, expecting him to cease immediately. When a third peanut hit him in the eye, he’d had enough. “Do that again,” he warned, “and I’ll punch your lights out.” But the peanut-tossing passenger couldn’t resist. He tossed a salted Planter’s one last time. The victim got out of his seat and triple-punched the peanut-tosser so hard that witnesses heard his jaw break. The plane was diverted to the closest airport and the peanut-tosser was kicked off. • During a full flight between New York and London, a passenger noticed that the sleeping man in the window seat looked a bit pale. Sensing that something was wrong yet not wanting to wake him, the concerned passenger alerted flight attendants who soon determined that the sleeping man was dead. Apparently, he had died a few hours earlier because his body was already cold. Horrified by the prospect of sitting next to a dead man, the passenger demanded another seat. But the flight was completely full; every seat was occupied. Finally, one flight attendant had an inspiration. She approached a uniformed military officer who agreed to sit next to the dead man for the duration of the flight.

The Sheik’s Baby Surprise

She still shook her head, too stunned at the idea that she was standing here speaking with a man of his power and position.  “You’re…you’re…”  She looked around, terrified now that she knew who he was.  He was Sheik of Sarkit!  He had meetings with the president!  Good grief, he had meetings with everyone! 

isn’t here any

The Texas Tycoon’s Temptation

Jack had seen his brothers-in-law, all puffed up with testosterone pride when they’d gotten their wives pregnant, when the babies came. He never pretended to really understand it. He was too busy with his career, with his troops, when it seemed to him a woman getting pregnant was probably the worst career suicide a man could suffer. He didn’t get their male egos; he thought his sisters were just getting fat and mean. He got it now. He felt as though his chest might explode. There was a fire in his belly and it was all he could do to keep from running up a flag. He couldn’t wait until he and Mel could make some plans, get married, tell the world they were lifetime partners and bringing a baby on board. She

Really, Gareth, His Grace was not unkind to me. He gave me a huge amount of money —" "I don't care what he gave you, you traveled three thousand miles to get here, and what does he damn well do? Pays you off like some — some creditor or something!  You, who ought to be treated as a member of our family, not a piece of unwanted baggage!  I cannot forgive him, Juliet. Do not ask it of me!" "I'm not asking it of you, but surely you can swallow your pride just for one night, if only for the sake of your niece." He stared at her, furious. "Er ... daughter," she corrected, lamely. Through his teeth he gritted, "We are not staying at de Montforte House or Blackheath Castle or any of Lucien's other estates, and I'll hear no more about it!"  He made a fist and pressed it to his forehead, trying to keep his temper under control even as Perry made a noise of impatient disgust and Charlotte's endless screaming threatened to drown out all thought, all sanity. Perry chose the wrong moment to be sarcastic. "Well done, my friend. You have just succeeded in showing your unsuspecting bride that there is indeed another side to you. Were you beginning to think your new lord was all syrupy sweetness, Lady Gareth?" Gareth's patience broke, and with a snarl, he went for his sword. Juliet grabbed his arm just in time. "Stop it, the both of you!  Really, Lord Brookhampton — must you antagonize him so?" Perry touched a forefinger to his chest. "Me?" "Yes, you!  The two of you are acting like a pair of brawling schoolboys!"  She pushed Gareth's hand away from its sword hilt and faced him with flashing eyes. "Charlotte and I have had enough. Either take us to de Montforte House or wash your hands of us, but I'm not going to stand here watching you two bicker while she screams London down around our ears!" Gareth stared at her in shock. And Perry, raising his brows at this sudden display of fire, merely reached into his coat and pulled out his purse.  He tossed it casually to Gareth. "Here," he said. "There's enough in there to buy yourselves room and board somewhere for a week, by which time maybe you'll have come to your senses. Consider it my wedding present."  He mounted his horse and touched his hat to Juliet. "Good day, Lady Gareth."  He gave Gareth a look of mocking contempt. "I wish the two of you many hours of marital bliss." And then, to Juliet's dismay, he turned and trotted off, leaving her standing on the pavement with a screaming baby and a husband who — it was growing alarmingly clear — was ill-equipped to take care of either of them.  

Why young men,” Lily demanded, “and not girls?” Caleb put a hand over hers in a gesture that had become familiar. She knew he wasn’t silencing her, but merely asking her to wait. “I’d be willing to invest in something like that,” he said. Rupert looked embarrassed and chagrined. “I couldn’t take money from you.” “Why not?” Lily wanted to know. She was still ruffled and spoke peevishly. “He must have piles of it, the way he throws it around.” In that instant the tension was broken and both men laughed. “Perhaps I should discuss this with Winola,” Rupert conceded. “I still want to know why it’s going to be a boarding school for boys,” Lily put in. Rupert smiled at her and took her hand. “Lily, dear, so many people don’t believe in educating girls. Boys, now, they have to make their way in the world—” Lily was outraged. “And girls don’t?” she snapped, looking from Caleb to Rupert. Caleb was distinctly uncomfortable, while Rupert wore his prejudices and complacency as easily as a pair of old slippers. “You and Winola are both notable exceptions, of course,” Rupert allowed with a benevolent smile. “Mostly, though, girls just need to be taught to cook and sew and care for children, and they can learn those things right at home.” Caleb closed his eyes as though bracing for an explosion. Lily leapt to her feet, waggling one finger in her brother’s face. “Is that what you’ll want for daughters of your own?” she sputtered. “Nothing but babies, and slaving for some man?” Rupert’s expression was one of kindly bafflement. Obviously Winola’s progressive ideas had not affected him. “It’s what a woman wants—” Lily wouldn’t have begrudged Rupert a penny if it hadn’t been for his narrow and unfair views. “If you give this man money for a school that admits only boys, Caleb Halliday,” she railed, “I’ll make you sleep in the chicken house!” “Sit down,” Caleb said quietly. Lily sat, but grudgingly. “I’ll be happy to give you the money you need,” Caleb told Rupert. Lily favored him with a horrified glare. “You mean you would support such a prejudice?” She was back on her feet again. “Tell me this, Caleb Halliday—do you want your daughters to be ignorant? I can assure you they won’t be, because I will not permit it!” “That,” said Caleb evenly, “is enough. You and I will discuss this later, in private.” Lily’s cheeks were flaming, but she resisted an impulse to storm off to the hotel in high dudgeon because she knew Caleb would not follow or try to assuage her anger in any way. “Yes, Major,” she said sweetly. Caleb narrowed his eyes at her but said nothing. Rupert looked concerned. “I can’t be the cause of trouble between the two of you,” he said. “Winola and I will think of some other solution to the problem.” “You could at least include girls in the classes,” Lily said stiffly. But Rupert shook his head. “Their parents would never permit them to live in such close quarters with young men, Lily,” he reasoned, “and rightly so.” Lily still felt as though her entire gender had been insulted, but she kept silent. Finally,

Why don’t we consider moving in together? While we head for this event?” She gulped. “What?” she asked weakly. “Let’s clear the debt, get Kid Crawford out of the picture, I’ll take on your upkeep rather than Vanni and Paul shouldering your food and board, and we’ll evolve into…” He cleared his throat. “We don’t have to explain anything. People will just say, ‘Dr. Michaels likes that nice pregnant girl.’ We’ll share a house. I’ll be your roommate. You’ll have your own room. But there will be late nights you’re worried about some belly pain or later, night crying from the babies. You don’t want to do that to Vanni and Paul and—” “I was just going to go home to Seattle. To my mom and dad’s.” “They have room for me?” he asked, lifting his fork and arching that brow. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, slamming down her fork. “You can’t mean to say you plan to just follow me and demand to live with the babies!” “Well, no,” he said. “That would be obsessive. But Jesus, Ab, I don’t want to miss out on anything. Do you know how much babies change from two to six weeks? It just kills me to think you’d take them that far away from me. I mean, they are—” “I know,” she said, frustrated. “Yours.” “Yeah, sweetheart. And they’re also yours. And I swear to God, I will never try to take them away from you. That would be cruel.” He had just aimed an arrow at her sense of justice. The shock of realization must have shown on her face, but he took another bite, had another drink of his beer, smiled. “Live together?” “Here’s how it’ll go if you stay with Vanni and Paul. Toward the end, when you’re sleepless, you’ll be up at night. You’ll be tired during the day, but there will be a toddler around, making noise and crying. And you’ll have all those late pregnancy complaints, worries. Then you’ll have a small guest room stuffed to the ceiling with paraphernalia. Then babies—and grandmothers as additional guests? Newborns, sometimes, cry for hours. They could have Vanni and Paul up all night, walking the floor with you. Nah, that wouldn’t be good. And besides, it’s not Paul’s job to help, it’s mine.” “Where do you suggest we live? Here?” “Here isn’t bad,” he said with a shrug. “But Mel and Jack offered us their cabin. It’s a nice cabin—two bedrooms and a loft, ten minutes from town. Ideally, we should hurry and look around for a place that can accommodate a man, a woman, two newborns, two grandmothers and… We don’t have to make room for the lawyers, do we?” “Very funny,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Abby, we have things to work out every single day. We have to buy cribs, car seats, swings, layette items, lots of stuff—it’s going to take more than one trip to the mall. We have to let the families know there will be babies coming—it’s only fair. We should have dinner together every day, just so we can communicate, catch up. If there’s anything you need or anything you’re worried about, I want to be close so I can help. If you think I’m going to molest you while you’re huge with my babies—” “You know, I’m getting sick of that word, huge.

She sat in her chair and looked around the room. What should she take with her? The antique chatrang board her predecessor had given her? Her mummified baby alligator, which she had on the theory that every sorcerer’s lair should have a mummified reptile of some kind?