On the Divinity of Second Chances by Kaya McLaren

would appear as though you are a natural. Let us begin learning the fingering for ‘Amazing Grace,’ the greatest song ever written.”
    I have always dreamed of playing “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes! This is great! I concentrate hard on keeping my fingers flat. I am determined to be the best student Al has ever had. He thinks it takes patience; I think it takes commitment and determination.
    At the end of the lesson, I pay him sixty dollars for the chanter and book, plus thirty dollars for the lesson. That was ninety dollars well spent. Ninety dollars would have only bought me a halfway decent putter had I chosen to pursue golf. Ninety dollars wouldn’t have even gotten me to the first green. Bagpipe lessons are a screaming good deal.

Jade on Olive’s Reality of Single Motherhood
(June 7)
    “Hey, sis. How goes it?” I ask Olive. She opens the door to reveal a stack of neatly labeled cardboard boxes.
    “All right.” She nods unhappily. “All of this is ready to go to Mom and Dad’s.” She looks pale and her eyes are sad.
    I pause and study her for a moment. “Are you all right?”
    She looks at me long, takes a deep breath, and says, “I’m pregnant.”
    “Oh.” I say and try to act surprised, but calm at the same time somehow. It’s an important time for me to keep my mouth shut. “Do you have a plan?” That’s neutral. I sit on a cardboard box labeled “Financial Records and Photo Albums.”
    “All I know right now is I’m not ready to tell anyone.”
    “Not even Matt? I mean, he’s the father, right?” She won’t look at me. She just keeps focusing on the pile of boxes.
    “I wouldn’t call him ‘the father.’ He doesn’t want anything to do with this.”
    “You told him?”
    “Not exactly.” She sits down on the box next to me, staring straight ahead. There’s a heaviness in the air between us and I wish Grace were here to help me. “I asked him a hypothetical question about what would happen if I accidentally got pregnant.”
    “And?”
    Olive puts her head in her hands and starts crying. I swallow hard and put my arms around her.
    “It’s gonna be okay . . .” I whisper, and rub her back.
    “No, it’s not, Jade.” She gulps for air. “He honestly believes that if I got pregnant, I’d have done it on purpose as a way to manipulate him. . . .”
    “Oh, Jesus . . .” I wasn’t prepared for that.
    “He’d ‘seriously have to wonder if he’d want to spend the rest of his life with someone who would do that to him.’ That’s what he said. I mean, we’re talking about a baby here and all he gives a shit about is himself!” She places her hand on the lower part of her belly. “I’m on my own, Jade.”
    I shake my head. “Man, Matt’s really blown it.”
    “I can’t believe I spent more than five minutes with him. You know, when I first fell in love with Matt, I really believed that he was in his guy chrysalis and that he’d emerge a man.” She shakes her head. “Wrong. He’s chosen to stay a guy. In fact, you could say he’s adamantly chosen to remain in guydom.”
    “Well, I guess if this is who he truly is, it was nice of him to tell you now. You were smart to believe him.”
    “If I was smart, I would have made these discriminations before I ever slept with him. Maybe if all women refused to sleep with guys and only slept with men, maybe more guys would step up and become men.” She shrugs. “I gambled on Matt. I thought for sure he was in the final stage of becoming a man. I gambled and lost, and ultimately it’s this baby who’s going to pay for my error in judgment. All I can do is try to minimize that cost by not subjecting her to willful abandonment. It’s always the children that pay. In retrospect, no sex is worth the debt I just imposed on this baby. I really screwed up. I’d give anything to be able to go back and do things differently.”
    “He flat out told you he’d want out?” I feel the need to clarify. “What were his exact