Chapter One
Sandy looks into my eyes like the practiced real-estate agent she is. Her savage blonde cut slices against her cheekbone and her whole appearance reminds me of a sleek, minimalist goddess.
She’s pumped me full of energy — confidence even — having giving me the proprietary pep talk three times by now. “It’s your body, your future: don’t let anyone else dictate what you do with it.”
I pull in my breath.
And my stomach.
Nothing is showing yet, and for good reason: the balloon gets air around fifteen weeks, or so I am told.
“You can do it,” she says again as if we are at the bottom of a jagged mountain and we’re both looking up, wondering just how one is supposed to summit that peak.
“You’re doing the right thing.”
She’s reminded me, again and again. “It’s not human, not really.”It has no business taking up space inside you — it’s a mindless pariah, sucking out your blood supply. She hadn’t said the last part, just thought it, and so had I. I’d prayed even, prayed to something I was starting to hope had some power, that it would make this little ball of nothingness just up and disappear from inside me.
But it hasn’t, not yet. So I am here. I need an appointment for this. I’m far enough along they have to approve. They have to make sure it’s not ectopic, and so I have to put actual voice to my demand. It would be so much easier just to go to a pharmacy.
I clear my throat.
Sandy has done this twice. First after her divorce, second with bruise marks still wrapped around her arms like tattoos. Collin, two months in, had proved less than the porcelain fixture he appeared to be on the internet, and she “couldn’t fathom bringing his child into this world.”
And me? What had gotten me into this predicament?
I can’t say it was rape, although I could. I could claim all sorts of things about that night. The truth is I was too far gone and lonely and barely awake, moaning my vowels and pressing onward.
And that is a shameful way to bring a child into this world, isn’t it?
“Maron Kraff.”
My spine straightens. It’s my turn.
“Go on,” says Sandy. She pats me on the rear like I’m a prized heifer and I jolt as she winks, “Do it.”
She’s been my best friend since the eighties, or at least it feels that way, although we were both technically about six months old when that decade ended. 'Men come and go,' we famously say, 'but a tight ass can see you through a world of hurt.' There were of course, other things that bonded us too, besides our addiction to HIIT workouts. But at the moment, I can't think of any.
