“Maybe you’ll be wrong,” Bex replied. “Maybe today will be unforgettable.”
He carried his empty plate to the sink, ran water over it, like he did every morning. He grabbed his badge and his car keys. “Maybe,” Hugh said.
—
EVERY MORNINGJANINE WOKE UPand said a prayer for the child she didn’t have. She knew that there were plenty of people who wouldn’t understand, or who would call her a hypocrite. Maybe she was. But to her, that just meant she had something to make up for, and this was how she was going to do it.
She padded into the bathroom and brushed her teeth. There were anti-lifers who would rather cut off their arms than change their opinions. But shecouldtry to make people like that understand how she felt:
Start with the sentenceThe unborn baby is a person. Replace the wordsunborn babywith the wordsimmigrant. African American. Trans woman. Jew. Muslim.
That visceralyesthat swelled through them when they said that sentence out loud? That was exactly how Janine felt about being pro-life. There were so many organizations set up to combat racism, sexism, homelessness, mental illness, homophobia. Why shouldn’t there be one to fight for the tiniest humans, who were the most in need of protection?
Janine knew she would never be able to convince everyone to believe what she did. But if she changed the mind of even one pregnant woman—well, wasn’t that a start?
She reached for the wig that she had propped over the neck of a shampoo bottle last night. Inclining her head, she slipped it on, fitting it tightly against her scalp. Then she looked in the mirror.
Janine grinned. She didn’t look half bad as a blonde.
—
OLIVE LAY ON HER SIDE,watching Peg sleep. There was so much she did for her wife that Peg did not acknowledge. The first cup of coffee that was always too bitter? Olive took it. The floor was a mess? Olive vacuumed while Peg went for her morning run. The sheets on the bed that were fresh every Sunday? Didn’t change themselves. Olive had done these things because she loved Peg. But now, she could see into the future. A year from now, Peg would spit out her coffee, wade through tufts of dust bunnies, sleep in sheets that were never washed.
Maybe they would smell faintly of Olive.
The truth was, for years now, Olive had been unable to imagine a world without Peg in it. Peg was about to have to imagine a world without her.
Peg’s eyes opened. She saw Olive staring and snuggled closer into her arms. “What are you thinking about?” she murmured.
Olive felt her throat tightening in the grip of the secret she held, and it felt wrong, unnatural. “I’m thinking,” she said finally, honestly, “about how much I’ll miss you.”
Peg smiled, closing her eyes. “And where exactly are you going?”
Olive opened her mouth and then hesitated. She might have to count time, but she didn’t need to start the clock yet. She pulled Peg into her arms. “Absolutely nowhere,” she said.
—
JOY DID NOT REMEMBER HERdreams, as a rule. This came, she was certain, from sleeping with one eye open at foster homes, to make sure that another kid wasn’t stealing something that belonged to her—a book, a candy bar, her body. Yet months ago, the night before Joy had taken a pregnancy test, she’d imagined that she had baby, wrapped in a blue blanket.
She’d had the same dream last night.
Her alarm had awakened her—another anomaly; normally she woke up at least five minutes before it went off. But she couldn’t be late today. So she had showered quickly, only to realize that her razor was broken. She did not eat—she’d been told not to—and since she was not supposed to drive herself home, she called for an Uber.
Her driver had pictures of his children stuck to the dashboard of his Kia. “Going to be a hot one today,” he said as they pulled away from the curb, and she silently cursed. She didn’t want a chatty driver. She wanted one who was mute, preferably.
“I guess,” she said.
He glanced into the rearview mirror. “You in town for the convention?”
She imagined this. What if there was a convention of unhappily pregnant women? What if they filled an entire conference hall? What if there were breakout sessions for Self-Doubt and Stupid Choices? Or a sitting area where you could cry, and a soundproof room where you could curse as loud as you wanted at a man, at your rotten luck, at God?
What if there was a keynote, with a motivational speaker who could truly convince you that tomorrow was going to be better than yesterday?
Scratch that. It wasn’t the pregnant women who needed a convention to educate them. It was the people who were rushing the gates, telling women like Joy she was going to hell.
“So you’re not a dentist?” the driver said.
“What?”
