Way back in week one or two I watched a documentary about whales. Grey whale mamas travel up the Pacific coast with their baby whales, the calves, once a year. They hug the shore so as to hide in the murkier waters, but when they get to Monterey Bay they cross open ocean because it’s faster. And there wait the only animals besides humans that could be a threat: Killer whales. The killer whales move in packs to separate the calf from the mother, and if they can, they attack and attack until they have killed and eaten the baby whale. The mother whale is too big for them.

Sometimes when the boy nurses he watches me with one eye, and it likes a little whale eye gazing at me.

I could not handle watching the baby whale hurt, but more than that watching the mama whale trying and unable to protect it. And it’s total bullshit that the camera people on nature shows don’t interfere. Natural processes and all that, but it’s not as if we haven’t been interfering for centuries. What? We can massacre thousands upon thousands of whales but can’t save this one?

And then today lying down for a nap I was thinking about the logistics of a potential train trip coming up and then I am picturing the train speeding up, too fast, and me knowing an accident was coming, and I am quizzing myself: What do you do to protect the boy? How will you save him? Ditto for a hypothetical car accident. In that one, I’m nursing the boy after the accident while waiting for an ambulance and bleeding from the head.

B. took the job by the way.

I might be feeling a little vulnerable.