'Counting Chickens' by Lisa Ferranti

The owner of the bed and breakfast where Drew and I are staying near Saguaro National Park tells us coyotes can throw their voices. Nature’s ventriloquists he calls them. Says he’s lost too many chickens to count. We eat spicy huevos rancheros made with fresh eggs from his coop, and I try to swallow without thinking of fluffy yellow chicks.

It's hot outside. Hot as in you could fry an egg on the pavement hot, so we decide to wait until evening to hike. Drew wants to go to University of Arizona, check out the planetarium. I tell him to go without me. I’m going to rest, drink fluids to douse the fire the salsa has ignited in my esophagus.

“You sure?” he says, touching my belly.

I nod and pull his hand up, kiss his knuckles. Smile so he’ll know I’m fine.

I crank the air conditioning and pull the down comforter to my chin, coaxing a quill through the fabric. I brush the feathery plume against my cheek and try to think of angels and sunshine and light. Positive thoughts, as the midwife suggests, to pump happy juice through the umbilical cord.

When Drew returns, we climb into the rented red Chrysler Sebring convertible, so different from the practical four-door sedans we own. We put the top down with the flip of a button, the breeze cooling us as we cruise down Cactus Forest Drive.

Counting Crows’ song “A Murder of One” plays on the radio—one for sorrow, two for joy—and I count the cacti we pass, the number increasing as we approach the park’s entrance. We walk the gravel paths, skirting sagebrush, weaving through giant saguaros. Gila woodpeckers flit into holes in the cacti, bedding down for the night.

It quickly becomes difficult to tell the path from the surrounding sand, and Drew and I retrace our steps. Pausing to get our bearings, we hear the howl of coyotes. We walk fast, and I feel a slight wetness between my legs, but I don’t stop, and soon we’re back at the trailhead, where we signed in only 15 minutes before, feeling silly now, mere feet from the car.

It’s too dark to count cacti, and besides, I’ve moved on to counting babies that will never be. I place my hand on my stomach, wishing it was mountainous. But I know it matches the dessert. Barren. Lacking life. Just like I knew last year.

I don’t hear howling now, but I can’t shake the feeling that coyotes are circling, nearer than they seem, and I shiver.

“Want me to put the top up?” Drew asks. With the flip of a button, he could make it so.

“No, leave it,” I say. We’re feathered by moonlight, and I lean my head back and gaze at millions of white-silver specks freckling the sky, not yet ready to admit defeat.