I’d heard plenty about how a mother’s devotion to her kids is primal. I got it—I could imagine that sort of wild, beyond-the-brain love, the kind of protectiveness that can sprout claws and incisors. I expected having a child to change my priorities, my routines, my capacity for tenderness and rage. I didn’t expect it …
Each summer I plunge my hands deep into sand, scrape knuckles against millennia of rock, dig untilI feel against my palm the wriggling that means success. I don’t shriek or flinch. I’m skilledat the capture, the catch and cradle, then in my palm the prize: pink-gray carapace,eyestalks like tendrils, ten white legs frantic for the …