When I complain about peri-menopause—weight gain, hot flashes, dark spots on my face—the doctor insists on a pregnancy test, and I laugh because I’m 46, soon to be 47, but when it comes back positive, I say, “I’ve already raised my kids.” And then I remember this same sentence came out of my mouth when Eunice returned from her freshman year of college in tears because she was pregnant and had waited too long and needed our help. And I said, “I’ve already raised my kids,” and now Eunice waits tables and Parker is two and I’m a grandmother, a grandmother with a baby on the way, and I wonder if now is payback for then. And sometimes I hear talk about girls taking emergency camping trips to Maryland or Illinois or Michigan, and I consider the possibility of an emergency vacation, but I’ve waited too long too, never imagined menopause could turn out to be a baby. And I remember how Jim and I got down on all fours with our kids, gave them horsey rides through the house, slid down the slides at the park, rode all the rollercoasters at Six Flags, and I wonder how we will do that now that our knees pop when we move and Jim groans when he pushes himself up from a chair—his back bad from years of manual labor—and we’ve been talking about moving into a townhouse now that the kids are grown so we don’t have to do yardwork. And I picture us standing at this new kid’s graduation, both of us old and gray and tired and someone will ask us if we’re here to see our grandchild, and we’ll hesitate before we say no no no.
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