Every new house needs a window. Every window a cornfield. Every cornfield needs a boy against which to compare height. Every boy needs a staple gun. Every womb the chance of striking the record. Against the row of small windows above the sill, my husband and I leaned album sleeves to block the light. Mozart, Beastie Boys, Dr. Dre. Cases we forgot to empty until the sun bent them into dizzying melodies that twisted into twilight on the day we realized what we’d done. We watched the sun go down, watched the birds as if it was a virtue. My daughter was experimenting with fear, testing shadows for firmness, so I tried to watch them the way she does and remembered no one was coming for me. I admit I’ve been lonely. I hate the word menopause the way some people hate moist. They say the big M is having a cultural moment. Maybe by the time I get there it will make good on what was promised. Maybe by then we will have taught roses to grow without thorns as if we didn’t just launch a rocket that carved a hole in the sky. The mothers will bed down in fields of them and listen to podcasts about birds and skip the ads for Zoloft and trace the shadows of each petal, trace the passage of light to the burning.