My blood pressure is rising; I’m fuming not too quietly about my son’s inveterate pokiness.  He’s dragged his feet about getting up, eating breakfast, taking a bath, getting dressed, brushing his teeth, putting on his shoes, coat, mittens, getting in the car, putting on the seat belt…

 

Bribes, cajoling, threats don’t work.  Everything has been a drama this morning.  Well, actually, every school morning, but this one was worse than usual.  I can see we’re going to be late.

 

We’re backing out of the driveway and he still doesn’t have his belt on.  A county road commission truck is behind me in the street, filling potholes, so I can’t even think about going any distance while my son puts on his belt.

 

I stop, nagging as I put the car in Park, get out and fasten his belt.  He grins as he looks at me from the corner of his eye, and then resumes the pouting pose he’s known for, the I-don't-want-to-go-to-school pose.

 

The truck moves, I back out, nagging as we go down the street…What kind of choice are you making, son, when you drag your feet like this?  Mom gets mad and you get in trouble, is that what you choose?  All the while I’m swallowing the urge to say, Why-oh-why can’t you be like your sister?

 

He’s hearing blah-blah-blah, I’m sure…

 

And then the cosmos leans in and checks me, us.  Stops us cold in our tracks.

 

I’m turning left at the corner at the end of the neighborhood, then right again at the next corner only two house-lengths away, when something catches my eye.  Something moved in the brush in the empty field, and then more movement.

 

Deer.  Six of them.  Four big does, two yearlings, moving from the brush along side the road, across the street and toward a suburban lawn.  Shocking -- I’ve not seen a deer in my neighbor hood for a decade; too many new houses, a Wal-mart, shopping plazas built up around us in that time, consuming the farmland they once called home. 

 

I brake the car in the middle of the turn, now whispering-shouting, LOOK! LOOK! to my son.

 

He shifts from his pout, now excited, can barely constrain himself, he’s shouting, LOOK! LOOK! now, too.

 

We pause, whispering now, How many are there? Where did they come from? Where are they going? as if someone or they would answer the questions.

 

Five of the six look up, concerned, move back to the brush; one stands alone, at the other side of the street, looking back brazenly at me.  Daring me to proceed.  She shifts her head, cocks her ears, snorts; she’s blown a little puff of steam when snorting, the puff trailing off above her backlit head in the morning light.

 

She holds her breath, no more steam rising from her nostrils, staring at me.  I stare back, holding my breath too.

 

She changes her mind.

 

And she walks back slowly towards the brush and the others, who now decide to wave their flag-white tails and leap off into the distance.

 

A car is pulling up behind me, will they get restless and honk, or pass me, or will they see what I see, so close to the road?  Should I move, get out of the way, pull to the side?

 

They see them, too.  And they stop.

 

I slowly pull ahead as the deer now slow to a mosey; they look as if they’re still mulling over another attempt to move in towards the neighborhood’s lawns.  My son is excited, wanting to tell his classmates at school now about the deer, Can I hurry to school now, please?

 

Watching from the rearview mirror, I see the car once behind me now parked, watching. 

 

Did the cosmos lean in and check them too?

 

  9:49:13 AM    comment []