Lately, sitting in a beach chair on the dirt that would some day be his backyard lawn, David has been expecting, feeling entitled to, signs from God. Not the earthshaking variety, of course. Nothing need be broken, shattered, or set aflame. He’s hoping for subtle communications, something sophisticated and aesthetically coherent within the context of his ambiguous philosophies. He’s dogmatic in his agnosticism, after all, and not up to a serious reworking of his take on the universe.

On a recent Saturday morning he’d slept through the drone of a leaf blower for the first time in his life and considered the possibility that it was a divine gift.

The ability to sleep through a leaf blower.

But then there was his sperm count. If God were going to bestow a gift, wouldn’t it be something useful over the long term, a few extra swimmers in his loins so Anne would get pregnant and he could go back to the snug security of his Jockeys?