Threading the Needle by Marie Bostwick Page B

crossed the street and joined them. I knew just how she felt. I’ve stood at the bus stop and the airport, proud and bereft, smiling through tears and waving for all I was worth as my child set out on adventures of his own with barely a backward glance—just as he should.
    It all goes too fast. I don’t blame her for clinging to her remaining baby as though she’d never let him go. If I could, I’d have done the same.
    Josh was supposed to be one of three. That was the plan. But we decided to save up for a nicer, larger house before starting our family. It seemed like the responsible thing to do and, after all, we had plenty of time. But it took longer to get pregnant than we’d supposed, a lot longer. I had one miscarriage before Josh was born and two after.
    By the time Josh started kindergarten, I knew there would be no other children. I was disappointed but not bitter. We had Josh, and I absolutely loved being a parent. So did Lee. My only complaint about motherhood was that it passed too quickly. When college catalogs started showing up in the mailbox with Josh’s name on them, I had to face facts: Our nest would soon be empty. Those were hard days for me, thoughtful days.
    I spent a lot of time sitting and thinking in the two always-empty bedrooms of the four-bedroom house we’d put off having children to buy. What if we hadn’t been so careful? What if we had followed our hearts instead of our heads and begun our family sooner? Might those empty rooms have been occupied by another son? A daughter? Twins?
    It was too late to do anything about it, but . . . what if? How different might our lives have been if we’d taken a few more chances? Stepped on the cracks in the sidewalk? Not all the time, but sometimes. Would we have been happier? More successful? Cast a bigger shadow? The past was past, but what about the future? On the backside of fifty, was it too late to change?
    At the time, I believed it was. But one day, as I was cleaning out a closet in one of those empty bedrooms, I came across a box of memorabilia that changed my mind. Inside, I discovered a picture of Madelyn Beecher and myself, sitting on the steps of my parents’ front porch on the day after the pig rescue. My legs were covered with itchy red splotches, but I was grinning from ear to ear. It was such a little thing, but I could still remember how good it had felt to do something wild and unpredictable and just a little bit dangerous.
    I dug the picture out of the box and when I went to bed that night, I showed it to Lee and told him all about my wondering and worries, my questions about what if and what now. I was surprised to learn that Lee had many of the same questions, that like me, he’d been wondering what comes after the empty nest. But the biggest surprise came when my husband, the mild-mannered and rational accountant, man of sharpened pencils and creased trousers, admitted to a secret and seemingly irrational desire.
    â€œA farmer? You want to be a farmer?” I laughed, looking at my husband’s solid-citizen blue blazer and sober striped tie hanging neatly over the back of a chair, mentally replacing them with dirty denim overalls and a flannel shirt. “Seriously?”
    â€œI used to spend every summer up in Vermont, on Uncle Dwayne’s farm. I’d pick apples and milk cows, hoe corn and onions. I loved it. And,” he said, looking a little offended, “I was actually pretty good at it.”
    â€œI’m sure you were.” I’d never pictured Lee as a farmer, but I was sure if he decided to be a farmer, he’d be a good one.
    â€œUncle Dwayne used to talk to me about taking over the place after he died.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you?”
    â€œDad convinced me that farming was a dead-end profession. I suppose he was right, but,” Lee said wistfully, “I kind of wish I’d given it a try, just to see for myself. . . .”
    Doesn’t