How to Have a Child Begin on the day you decide you are fit to carry on. Begin with a quailing heart for here you stand on the fault line. Begin if you can at the beginning. Begin with your mother, with her grandfather, the ones before him. Think of their hands, all of them: firm on the plow, the cradle, the rifle butt, the razor strop; trembling on the telegram, the cheek of a lover, the fact of a door. Everything that can wreck a life has been done before, done to you, even. That’s all inside you now. Half of it you won’t think of. The rest you wouldn’t dream of. Go on.
