TWENTY-SEVEN
THE LAUNDRY ON THE LINES outside her window undulated in the wind, finally. How many months since they’d stiffened with frost? It was April, for God’s sake. She should be able to leave the thermal underwear in her drawer soon. Wearing them over her stockings for the five-minute walk to the hospital no longer represented adventure.
She didn’t have to check her reflection in the mirror before leaving for the hospital. She knew how she looked, and she assumed that everyone else had become accustomed to her appearance, too. Elephantine ankles in her stockings because it was now necessary to wear the waistband at her hips. Her face was fuller, even more so than when Ruth remarked on it three months earlier; it was especially apparent when she pulled her hair off her face before e
