Michelle and Olivia Chapter 1 from An Accident of Birth SuEllen Hamkins and Cindy L. Parrish Olivia loved this path along the stream, littered with pine needles and framed with ferns, soft enough for bare feet. Hardly anyone came this way to the waterfall. Olivia thought of it as her waterfall. Michelle, eight months pregnant with her first child, walked slowly behind her, stiff-hipped from belly weight. Her straw blonde hair was damp near her temples, Irish cream skin beading with tiny drops of perspiration. She was obviously feeling hotter than Olivia owing to that abdomen, rounding out low and huge before her like some great hope. Olivia appreciated her own relative lightness. But as she ducked under a low branch, her arms felt suddenly awkward. Empty. She held up the branch for Michelle to pass under. “We’re almost there.” Olivia said, glancing back at Michelle. “Good,” Michelle said, disentangling her sundress from an overeager briar bush. “Now what’s supposed to happen when we get there? Nothing too weird, right? I’ll never forget that time you went out walking at midnight with a pack of dogs.” “And lived to tell about it.” “The telling was your favorite part,” said Michelle. Olivia considered for a few steps, the pine needles making a very soft crunch crunch crunch under her feet. When they were girls, Olivia had taken their ordinary lives and their dreams and rubbed them together into stories of their future like she was making a fire to light the way, and Michelle had fanned the flames. Olivia smiled down at the path beneath her feet. It was so satisfying to be with someone who knew her when. “I was practicing,” she told Michelle, wiggling her fingers as though casting a spell towards the sky. Olivia hadn’t seen Michelle for ten years, the years of college and graduate school, but both had just gotten jobs in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, north of where they’d grown up together. Michelle was an obstetrician, Olivia a professor of African folklore and professional storyteller. They had been getting to know each other again, discovering what kind of a friendship they might have, given all their differences. Now, a few months after reconnecting, Olivia had proposed a “sort of ritual thing” at her waterfall in honor of Michelle’s pregnancy. She was pleased when Michelle was quick to say yes. It was an hour’s walk into the woods to get there, but Michelle thought it would be all right. “My point exactly,” Michelle said, grunting as they went up a slight incline. “Quit worrying, girl. We’re just going swimming.”
Volume 13, Number 1
SPRING 2001
phoebe
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