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Suddenly there is much to be done. Projects, his, mine, ours, a friend’s, hers, always with a reminder I have more projects in boxes and closets. His daughter needs a little extra help. My son is coming home. The holidays are approaching, parties are in the offing. Cheese wafers to be made. I need my hair cut, I need to cut his.

Take one step at a time. Be in the moment. Participate with love. Breathe.

Today he asks for quarter round, which means a trip to the lumber yard. I don’t want to go, but I must. It’s in my job description.

Trucks pack the parking lot; several are parked along the access road. Definitely not a good time to be buying a measly thirty-two feet of quarter round. Who is going to care about quarter round except he who wants it? Breathe.

Inside the store are eight customers, most of them on the tool side, and two clerks. I head for the supply side. The man in front of me wants some kind of pump; he and the clerk play word association. Sump pump. That’s it. They head for the bowels of the store. More customers come in. One guy sports dreads and a kerchief; his jeans are patched. He disappears into the aisles. A round man comes in and stands in front of me, next to the counter. He pulls a package out of a bag. A return. Obviously he feels his bad purchase trumps my potential one. A woman, red ankle length coat, red four inch heels, red lipstick, wanders the store. She leaves the supply side for the tool side. In the back my clerk is still talking sump pumps with the man who doesn't even know the sump part but needs one. They could be gone a while.

The dread guy resurfaces with a clerk. Where did he find a clerk? A pack of guys leave from the tool side, and the woman in red stands at the counter. I’ve made the wrong choice. I head for the tool side. The one clerk on the tool side is cutting keys. An office door opens, and a man in khakis stands in the door way, talking. Maybe he will see me. He doesn’t glance at the sales counter. Maybe he is a customer, or a salesman. Some guy goes behind the counter to meticulously tape a small package. He doesn’t look my way, but he does say hello to the woman in red. The key cutter asks me what I want. Quarter round, two twelve foot sections, one eight foot section. He heads for the computer to put in my order, but is diverted. A new sales clerk comes from the recesses of the tool aisles with a new customer. What have they been doing back there? The sump pump seminar is still being held on the supply side.

I suddenly understand. I’m having a miracle pop quiz. The Universe is giving me the opportunity to discover how much I’ve learned. I understand it’s a quiz, and I realize the chemicals churning in my brain aren’t the right answer. I can ask for a miracle. I do. Breathe.

The khakis guy comes behind the counter. He asks me what I need. Quarter round, two twelve foot sections, one eight foot. He goes to the computer. The new sales clerk is using it to check out the new customer. The new customer needs two of something, and both men disappear into the aisles to look for it. The khakis guy smiles at me. I breathe. “Computer’s busy,” he says.

I breathe deeper. I ask for a miracle. Jumping up and down and giving them what for won’t get me anywhere. Somehow-- apparently by magic or secret handshake according to the random pattern of converging clerks and customers -- with only two computers, this store, the only lumber store in my small town, manages to service the building needs of the community. Whole buildings are erected, new houses, remolding jobs. Thirty-two feet of quarter round is not going to impress these mystics of raw wood and sump pumps. I can’t get quarter round anywhere else in a fifty mile radius anyway. Obviously a miracle is in my best interest.

“Let’s go to the other side,” the khakis man says. We do. He rings up my sale. The computer doesn't stall or crash. He gives me my receipt, directs me to the warehouse in the back. I’m on my way, with only a mild churn burning through my brain. C-, probably, on the miracle pop quiz.

I drive around back, squeezing past the huge truck and trailer unloading stacks of something, to get to the back where they have my quarter round. I don't even bounce over the rotted landscape timber jutting into my cramped space. Luckily I have a small truck. What do the big truck guys do if they have to pick up lumber?

A weasely fellow comes to get my ticket. He disappears into the tunnel of lumber, and begins pulling quarter round. We've done this drill several times in the past, so I know it's easy sailing now. I read the paper. Weasel appears at my window. “We only got two fourteen and an eleven,” he says. I can interpret. He’s taking about feet and quarter round. “I bought two twelves and an eight,” I say, feeling the chemicals simmering. I've never before had trouble with these measurements. This test must be a two-parter. He disappears.

A dapper man, obviously a supervisor, replaces him. “We can’t cut the fourteens,” he says. “We can give you two fourteens and a four.” I decide to decipher the rules. “How come you can cut four feet, but not eight or twelve?" I say. I sound evil, a cat smirking at a mouse. “I’m not supposed to,” he says. He sounds exasperated. “It’s the only way I can give you your thirty-two.” I remember to ask for a miracle, but the brain chemicals are telling me to give them hell. “I can send your paper work back up front,” he says. “No!” I say. I feel like I’m about to draw a Dismal Swamp card in the Candy Land game. Miss two turns. Not up front again. Never. Breathe. “Give me the two fourteens and a four,” I say. I am not gracious. Two fourteens and a four, and no miracle. We’ll be piecing quarter round along the baseboards. “Want me to tie it down?” he asks. I look at the six foot of quarter round bending out the back of my little truck. I want to go home. "No." I’ll go slow.

I drive to the check-out point. The checker looks at my drooping quarter round. “Want me to tie that down?” he says. He picks up the piece that is now lying on the ground. I give up. I have to accept help. “Guess you better,” I say. He begins to position it across the back of the bed. I wonder how I’m going to drive home with six foot of quarter round poking the cars behind me. There must be a better way, I think. Again, I have to give up. I must join in. I get out, looking for a way to tie the quarter round with the extra extending over the cab. The checker decides to lay it along the side, tying it to the rear view mirror in the front and to a hook at the foot of the truck bed.

The dapper man reappears. “I knew it needed to be tied,” he says. He works two sheds over. He has come to make sure I can get home. I am out of the truck, in the parking lot of the town’s only lumber yard, in the clear November sun. I realize the brain chemicals have receded. I am breathing. I am light. “You were right,” I tell the dapper man. Travis. His uniform reads Travis. We are grinning at each other, as if we have just discovered a delicious secret. He is explaining the intricacies of quarter rounding to me. I am telling him I have been cranky. The quarter round lies snug along the length of the truck. At home, with what we already have, it will turn out to be just enough...no piece work will be required. The cheese wafers will be made and declared good. I will get my hair cut. His girl will be steadier. My boy will come home. Some projects will be completed; some will be deferred. But when time gets constricted and I get tense, my path will ease when I remember this moment. “You weren’t cranky,” he said. “You just wanted what you wanted.”

He was right again. And I got it. Those little miracles, they’re a giggle.

Trojan

The dog wakes me earlier than I need. Wearing only glasses, I stumble downstairs, hide in the door’s shadow so the dog can go outside. I do not plan on being up yet. In the kitchen a light is on, and I realize it is already Monday. Monday, and my husband is smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, waiting for the world to close around him.

I go to the sunroom, tell him hello. He must be shocked by my round belly and sparse thatch. We seldom see each other naked. Still, shock may be good for him, remind him life is earthier than we choose to remember.

He goes to work. The morning is mine. Today I want to clean. I want to own the house, claim its space. Sleep burns my eyes, lures me back to bed. A couple of hours and my mind will clear, my eyes will sooth. My husband naps on week-ends as he feels the call. Perhaps a nap will unfumble my morning.

I cannot sleep. No ease here. I turn on the computer. A postcard message waits for you, an e-mail says. I know better, and still I hit the URL, I don’t know why, too close to sleep, or maybe I want someone out there to be reaching in toward me. VIRUS pops up, quarantined. I knew better. The morning bottoms out; I have been stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I knew better, why did I do that, is the virus really trapped, have I infected the world, stupid, brought my friends’ computers crashing?

I remind myself there is no black hole. Virus, no virus, I have not destroyed the universe. Most days a person can be stupid and live. Today I will live. The house is mine. I will claim it, as soon as I read this letter my stepdaughter has sent, a letter from her soon-to-be ex-father-in-law.

Camellia this, the letter says, Camellia that, Camellia has burned the halls of the marriage of my son and you, he tells my stepdaughter. What do you think of this, she asks me. I am Camellia. Virus. Quarantine.

The house is mine. The house awaits. A woman arrives seeking a favor, only the favor she doesn’t need, it’s the wedge in my door, my house. Coffee she needs, and an ear, my ear, which she fills with stories of who has done what wrong, no need for me to say a word, virus, virus, virus. Quarantine.Lunch.

The soon-to-be-ex son-in-law calls. Tell her, tell her, tell her, I promise, please, please, must not must not must not. Virus. Quarantine.

Some days I am simply deaf and blind. Stupid in the dark. Earth-locked. Some days the world, like a hollow horse, bids me to invite the invader in. Quarantine. Some days I can do no more. I thickly wait, dumbly muffled, to wake up, to remember Love has saved us all.