POV: Yessica | Location: Edinburgh
The sign said Mums Without Partners — Thursday Evenings.
Yessica stood at the top of the church basement stairs and seriously considered leaving.
She'd been standing there for four minutes. She'd timed it.
The rain behind her was getting heavier.
She went down.
The basement smelled like instant coffee and something that had been left on the radiator too long. Eight women in a circle of folding chairs, all various shapes of pregnant. A facilitator with a clipboard. A table of biscuits nobody was eating.
Yessica took the chair nearest the exit.
"First time?"
The woman next to her had bright red hair piled into a bun that was losing its battle. Twenty weeks, maybe more. Band t-shirt under an open flannel. She looked like she'd never been anxious in
