Wild Dark Shore

by Charlotte McConaghy

Loving a place is the same as having a child. They are both too much an act of hope, of defiance. And those are a fool’s weapons.

Is this how it will feel when the world starts to crumble? Like you can’t see where you’re going, and at any moment you could lose your people and be left to wander alone?

What I miss most is not any of the things I expected. It’s having someone to talk to about our children. The hilarious things they say and do, the insights with which they blow my mind and the ways they change frequently and without mercy. I need her to help me process and deliberate and delight in. I want to laugh with her. To be awestruck with her. I want her to look at me in wonder, acknowledging what profound creations we have made together. What I miss is having someone to look at in moments like these, someone who understands not just the talent or cleverness of our children but the wisdom, the immensity of feeling they hold within. Instead I marvel at them alone.

When Orly came along and it was just me, I realized how she’d known. She’d fucking learned. She’d had to, because somebody had to keep the babies alive, and so she bloody well got on with it. And now I was going to have to do the same, except without any backup, and the burden of this division of labor became astoundingly, mortifyingly clear to me. Oh, how I had coasted upon the back of this woman, deep in the trenches with her and also very happy to let her learn all the things and know all the things.