The Six Rules of Maybe

the water against skin and the soft sound of the construction guys’ radio across the back fence. Okay, God. I stopped thinking about Zeus and backyards and pregnant sisters. I stopped thinking about anything and everything but the suddenand overpowering sense of skin on my skin. Wet, soapy skin on wet, soapy skin.
    I breathed. I tried to breathe.
    “It’s amazing what another pair of hands can do,” Hayden said.
    I would have spoken, had my heart not been in my throat.

Chapter Eleven
    J uliet had woken from her nap. I heard the shower on in the hall. I passed by her room. Their room. The covers were tossed back. I could see a sheet of paper on the floor, where it had obviously been slipped under the door and left where it was found. I would not read it. It was not my business. I went to my own room, shut the door with my back against it.
    I argued with myself a full ten minutes before I did what the truthful part of me knew I was going to do all along. I don’t even know why I bothered with this moral charade, except maybe to show myself that I did have a little decency before I went ahead and did the bad thing I was planning to do anyway. My mind somehow awarded me conscience points for the meaningless inner protest. I had restrained myself for a few minutes, so I couldn’t be all bad, right? When all that messy business of ethics and principles was sorted out, I went back to Juliet’s room. The shower was still on, but I still had to act fast.
    I left the paper right where it was. I leaned down to read it without touching it.
    Dear Juliet—
    You only met my mother once, and I know how you felt about her, but I hope this will change over time. She is someone I love and respect, and her experiences have given her a wisdom I trust. She taught me a lot about life, stumbling through it, running to it, climbing around and over its crevices and peaks. She saw some bad times with my father, Trent. Bad. Yet even stuck in that place, she believed that a limited life was your own doing. She believed your life was in your own hands.
    She always kept a list on our refrigerator. I remember it there from the time I was very young. It went through two moves, countless years, and it became faded and splotched and worn as some recipe handed down from generations. Finally, I took it down. I’ve kept it in my wallet since. It’s a worthwhile thing to keep near.
    She called it The Five Rules of Maybe. Maybe was her favorite catchphrase for hope or anything close to it—dreams and possibilities and wants and wishes… . This is the list:
    The Five Rules of Maybe
1. Respect the power of hope and possibilities. Begin with belief. Hold on to it.
2. If you know where you want to go, you’re already halfway there. Know what you desire but, more importantly, why you desire it. Then go.
3. Hopes and dreams and heart’s desires require a clear path—get out of your own way.
4. Place hope carefully in your own hands and in the hands of others.
5. Persist, if necessary.
    It’s deceptively simple, I’ve come to realize. But I saw how this list got my mother out of bad places and into good ones, to the work she loves, a life she treasures. I accept that a limited life is my own choice, and I’m holding tight to my belief in us. My hopes for you and me and our child are numerous and galloping—I am going to be the best man I can for you, Juliet, that’s what I desire, and I desire that because you deserve that. That’s who I want to be. Let’s dream and believe and make all the best for ourselves.
    The possibilities are there in your eyes, Juliet, swimming in those pools of blue. Let’s get out of our own way. What did you say to me? Waiting is for cowards. Let’s go get the life that’s ours.
    You could almost hold a wide sea in your hand, an endless, beautiful valley, a whole city where anything could happen. The biggest sky, stretched on forever. Was it true, really, that you could get whatyou want? That you could desire it and seek it and make it your own? I thought about those hands under that water, the slippery skin, some shiver of need, and right then it seemed like a want was doomed to be either a small flame too impossible to fan or else a secret fire blazing out of control. Never just a daily thing, yours, both wild and confined, burning bright in your very own fireplace. Juliet could have whatever she wanted though. It was right there for her. A life was there, a pair of outstretched arms, two pairs, something