Chapter 18

About three months after our wedding, the white days lingered. They didn’t end even when the dates in the calendar marked for menstruation passed, one, then another, then a week. I marked off each square with a tingle of hope that this clean night, this morning kiss, even this comfort of peering over a paper shoulder to shoulder with my husband, would not be the last. Perhaps, I twiddled his thick fingers and felt the tiny abrasions of chewed cuticles, perhaps it’ll be like this for another nine months. "A tiny babele," he said. I called my mother from the office phone. “Oh, Freidy!” She could hardly restrain a weepiness. “Go to the pharmacy in the Shopping Centre—to the very back. Get the EPT pregnancy test from under the counter; it’s the reliable brand. Call me later, okay?”