time begins 347Natural cycles persist in being predictable, despite all human caprice.
It probably happened by the grace of biology, rather than magic, that the
very date Lily had circled on her calendar one year earlier got circled now
on mine, for the same reason. When Number One Mother sat down on
her clutch of eggs, I’d made note of it in my journal. Now I counted for-
ward like expectant mothers everywhere: My babies due!
I was on pins and needles, watching the date approach. Having done it
myself twice, I knew the expectant- mother gig: focus, summon strength
for the task at hand. But now I found myself in a role more along the lines
of expectant dad: dither uselessly. I could do absolutely nothing to help,
which increased my need to hover.
On the actual due date I walked down to the poultry barn to check on
Mom. Maybe, oh, about sixteen times. She raised her hackles and hissed
at me to go away. This was a whole different demeanor from her glassy-
eyed hunker of yesterday and the twenty- six days previous. I took her
fussy defensiveness to be a good sign. Chicks begin peeping from inside
the egg a day or so before they hatch. This mother must be hearing that, I
thought, getting ready for the blessed event.
The outcome of Sunday, April 23, however, was a big nothing. Monday
brought more of the same. Has any anxious person ever really respected
the warning about watched pots that never boil? Well, good for you, is all
I can say, because I checked that nest morning, noon, and night, hoping
for little fluffy chicks that did not appear. After all we’d been through to-
gether, Number One and I, what if nothing hatched at all?
On Tuesday I went back through my journal and recalculated the due
date, thinking I might be off by a day. I wasn’t. They would hatch by the
end of Tuesday then, I concluded reasonably, and they did not. That night
I double- checked my reference books, which all agreed the incubation
period for domestic turkey eggs is “about 27 days.” What does about
mean? Twenty- nine? Forty? On Wednesday I checked on the poor mother
until she was visibly fed up. I even poked my hand under her to feel the
eggs. She stuck tightly to the nest, but became so accustomed to my prod-
ding that she began to ignore me rather than hissing. Possibly she was
slumping into post- due-date despair.