Once showered and dressed, I considered myself in the long mirror on the back of the door and was glad that I didn’t have many clothing choices; nothing was going to look good enough, I thought as I picked and pulled at the hem of the black jersey dress.
I sat on the bed to pull on black tights when I felt the cramping begin in a deep point of my abdomen, then spread in a surge that felt as if something was being stretched. It was quicker than before and less intense. In the bathroom I checked my underpants again; no sign of a period but the tights felt uncomfortable around my waist, and I pulled them off. Back in the bedroom, I lay on the bed and prodded my abdomen looking for swellings and reminding myself that I’d had a full medical examination only a month earlier, but there were some
