Fred Wants to Know if I Believe in God,

it into a kind of lifestyle lesson. This is not a thing to be congratulated, I should have said. This was a mistake! I’m getting an abortion! And I’m damn lucky I live in a state where I can, I should have said, where I don’t have to drive ten hours to a clinic with protestors holding signs and sloganing horrible things at me. But even then, I’d still have to get rid of it. Otherwise my boyfriend will leave me, I should have said, and I’ll be forced to drop out of college (assuming I was in college), move back in with my parents, and work as a waitress in the little diner across from my high school to provide for the child. Let this be a life lesson to you, young teenage girls: Get yourselves to Planned Parenthood, take your birth control pills. Promise me, right here and now in this black-and-white tiled bathroom, solemnly swear to take full responsibility for your bodies. The pull-out method doesn’t work, I should have said, pointing to my belly, no matter what he claims.

All further evidence that I should never be allowed to have children, that I am not a physiologically or emotionally viable candidate for pregnancy, and that I should never attempt to mentor Lily on matters of female sexuality.

I would be a terrible mother, I decide, resolved to quit worrying, particularly about incidents of the past or unreasonable possible incidents of the future. Don’t worry so much, my brother says. Can’t you just be a normal person? he asks, and my sister-inlaw modifies his request: Can you try to take things one day at a time, maybe?

Yes, I will try to be more serious in my thinking about my lifestyle from here on out, one day at a time, without so much worry. I will shower and dress and eat a croissant like a normal human being.

It will not really be significant to anyone else, but I will feel radiant with significance. I ate a croissant! I will say in my head (a few times, not too many). And after I eat it slowly at the café, enjoying every indulgent mouthful, watching without envy or worry as people come and go with and without children, I will walk back to my brother and sister-in-law’s house and they will still be readying my niece and nephew for school. And I will o er to help Zander select socks without seams, wipe the food crust from Lily’s cheek, wash all the breakfast dishes myself—no need to help, brother and sister-in-law, I’ll handle this, seriously—and my brother will say, Good to see you up and about. And my sister-in-law will ask, Have you eaten breakfast today?

And I will respond, smiling, triumphant, Yes.

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