Shatter My Rock Read Online Free

Wonder bread by its
neck, wrestle a can of tuna from a tipsy stack. And when I round the corner,
something unexpected catches my eye: the family planning section. I can hardly
believe this hole-in-the-wall has such a thing, but here it is: condoms,
lubricants, pregnancy tests. I feel as if someone has placed these items to
taunt me. Or perhaps they are a mirage. If nothing else, they are a coincidence
too unlikely to ignore.
    After
multiple failed attempts to conceive, Dr. Patel now allows me to administer the
pregnancy tests at home, to save myself and everyone else the humiliation and
disappointment of yet another squandered opportunity.
    I
run my fingers along the edge of the EPT box, deciding. I’m sure the embryo
transfer has failed; it has been almost three months, and I have no symptoms.
Weeks ago, I told Tim and Dr. Patel that the test was negative. But now I must
know for sure.
    I
wrap my fingers around the box and proceed to the checkout, where a teenage
girl—maybe a mother already herself—bags my items with a stone face.
    The
owner of this store is a slow cook, so my sandwich is not nearly ready. And the
bathroom is unoccupied. I set my bag on the warped floor, slide the pregnancy
test into my purse and head for a scuffed door, to which someone has taped a
sheet of notebook paper with the word “restroom” written in thick, black
permanent marker.
    I
clunk the door shut behind me and shove the hook through the eye, locking the
world out. It’s clear this place is more utility closet than anything else,
stacks of toilet tissue, paper towels, and cleaning supplies cluttering every
corner.
    For
a moment, I am ambivalent about taking the test here, an inauspicious place to
receive such life-altering news, one way or the other. But I hike my skirt over
my hips anyway and tear the flimsy wrapper from the predictable plastic stick,
which I have come to refer to as the Oracle of Life.
    As
I wiggle my skirt back into place, I wonder if I am the only woman to have
asked such a serious question in this convenience store bathroom—or any convenience
store bathroom anywhere, for that matter.
    I
balance the stick precariously across a rusty soap dish and concentrate on the
test window, praying for a miracle. Just one sibling for Ally would be enough,
but there is always the possibility of multiples with IVF; twins are common.
    A
vertical blue line quickly takes shape in the control window, which at least
means the test isn’t a dud. Then something breathtaking: the shadow of a
vertical line in the test window too. The vital half of a plus sign. I know
from experience that a negative result is a simple horizontal line. A minus
sign. But now I see a cross. The sign of life. 
    ----
    The
early years were happy ones, our mother referring to us as the Rhode Island
Kennedys.Until I was six, I had little doubt of this invention, its
proof no more elusive than the fact that I was born the day John F. Kennedy
died.
    Our
father, George Ross, was a lawyer and a politician, a two-term senator for the
Grand Old Party. There were limos and yachts, dignitaries and soirees. More
money than anyone knew what to do with.
    Then
came Ricky, like yellow oleander: delicate and toxic.  Our old lives withered
and fell away, a desert landscape in the rearview. The only thing that survived
was Dukate Disease.  
    It
wasn’t Dukate that stole our mother, though. She bore well the cross of Ricky’s
death. What destroyed her was our father, how he disintegrated and fled,
leaving her pregnant for the third time and in mortal terror. She went directly
from the abortion clinic to the asylum, where she passed two decades in a
drug-induced fog. Now she fills a slot at a nursing home, with even better
pills and less give-a-damn.
    I
make the trip to Meadow Haven two or three times a year, more for me now than
for her. Despite such infrequency, the place takes more than I can give. But I
don’t want our mother to die alone, even if she’ll never know,