by Jess D. Taylor

Two summers ago I took a break from my boyfriend and took solace in the cool green Russian River—like me, much lower than usual. Everyone talked drought, the impending fire season. 

Out of nowhere, it hurt anytime I ate, sharp spikes along my gum-line. I took ibuprofen before every meal, saw an ENT who recommended surgery for a salivary stone that had gotten so big the gland had to come out with it. 

Stones accumulate so slowly, years of build up. That something can grow from nothing is the most terrifying thing. 

I was relieved by this clear diagnosis, exactly what I wanted in my relationship of eighteen months that was supposed to be a fling but had surprised me with substance. I knew our break would probably end, but then what? I’d been married for nearly a decade before that, sure I’d not love anyone so vulnerably again. The possibility was exhilarating and also kind of sad. 

In an open-air circus tent smelling of dry grass and spun sugar, I watched a couple on the trapeze. I wondered if they were in love—all that risk, all that trust. The knife throwers reminded me of my upcoming procedure, an incision beneath my jaw, so near the nerves that control the tongue—tasting, talking, kissing—the potential for such loss.

Two weeks into our break, wildfire smoke threatened to ruin a camping trip with a friend, another single mom, in the lower Sierras. We took our kids anyway, we’d gotten used to how winds make all the difference. After a rare summer storm cleared the air, a bear thundered into our site for the snack bin. I cowered near the tent while my friend Ursa, true to her name, met the creature with a fierce flash-lit invitation to leave us alone, and it did. 

I couldn’t stop thinking about my boyfriend, our legs entwined on the couch, our silent communion, our naked hunger. That something can grow from nothing is the loveliest thing. 

My surgeon removed the biggest salivary stone she’d ever seen. I asked her why that thing, why my body. Who knows? she said. 

The gash on my neck healed. I reunited with my boyfriend, then left my daughters with their dad and flew to Hawaii. I swam far enough out to make my stomach flip, my butterfly kicks no real match for the waves that tossed me then pummeled me, currents that swept unbroken to Antarctica. Maybe Ursa is right, it’s me I have to learn to trust.

Heatwaves, biology’s indifference, his heart, anyone’s heart—so much I can’t control. It’s been almost two years and at least as many breaks. Sometimes I get to worrying that a new stone is forming in a remaining salivary gland, though I know it’s not nearly as likely as another drought following this year’s record breaking rains. 

I like to remember the trapeze couple, their graceful, honest dependence. I wonder, how many misses behind each sure catch.