The Egg Essay

by M.M. Kaufman

It’s very early on a Sunday morning. The puppy wakes me up early no matter the day of the week. I’m waiting for the coffee to brew while the dogs eat breakfast. Through the window I see my neighbors, husband and wife, walking around their front yard with woven baskets. I think the husband is checking the mail, a strange thing to do early on a Sunday morning, but he pulls a little plastic egg out of the basket he carries and hides it inside the mailbox. I remember it’s Easter. 

I move even closer to the window while I watch this husband and wife, this mom and dad, hide eggs all over the yard. My nose is pressed up against the glass creating a halo of fog. They’re good parents. They’re kind and patient and smart and fun. They often tell my husband and I that we would make good parents too. 

My writing-brain is already saying—before the thought has barely formed—No, this metaphor is too much. But the rest of my brain can’t stop it. I watch the parents hide the eggs and I count them. One. Two. Three. I count how many months my husband and I have not gotten pregnant. Four. Five. Six. The parents are nearly done. Their baskets are nearly empty. Seven. Eight. Nine. They’re going inside to wake the children.

The coffee is done and the dogs and I go outside to the patio. The neighbor children, still in their pajamas, are out now. They’re running around the yard with baskets despite the fact that it’s barely 8 o’clock. This wasn’t how I experienced Easter as a child. A Christmas morning vibe. The Easter Bunny as Santa Claus. Maybe it’s new. What would I know about modern parenting trends? 

I sit down with the dogs and my coffee and watch the children hunt for their plastic eggs. I count each one as they find them. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. I try not to think about how many more months my husband and I will wait. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. How long we will search. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. How full, or how empty, our baskets might become.

M.M. Kaufman is a writer based in Georgia. She is a Fulbright Scholar and earned an MFA in the University of New Orleans’ Creative Writing Workshop. She is currently the Managing Editor at Rejection Letters and team member for Micro Podcast. Her fiction is published with The Normal School, Hobart, Metonym Journal, Sundog Lit, Daily Drunk Mag, (mac)ro(mic), HAD, Olney Magazine, Pine Hills Review, Maudlin House, jmww, Major 7th Magazine, Rejection Letters, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @mm_kaufman and on her website mmkaufman.com.