Every month. Every...
Curious, she opened the book to the page for February. Even though it was the first of March, no spot of red glowed from the previous month's white-and-blue surface. She flipped back to January. And stared in quiet shock.
She tried to remember everything that had happened in the last month. Her promotion had so occupied her time that she hadn't given any thought to much outside of her work. If any-thing, the freedom from aches and cramps had enabled her to handle the transition with ease. She gazed at January's mark. The third. She counted. Eight weeks. Over eight. It can't be. She begged herself to remember something. The week or two before Valentine's Day. Spotting, maybe.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
She opened a drawer to check her tampons. The box was nearly full. When did she buy it?
Looking up in the mirror, Valerie saw a different woman staring back. She missed work that day.'
Dr. Evelyn Fletcher's eyes opened three minutes before her alarm went off. Thoughts immediately began their daily churn. Concerns about luteinizing hormones, estradiol, and catheters intertwined with musings over synchronization, scheduling, and budgets.
She rolled naked out of the narrow single bed and, after a perfunctory glance at herself in the bathroom mirror, climbed into the frigid bathtub and turned on the water.
The first blast brought a shudder of cold, followed by a gradual warming. The tub was an antique ball-and-claw de-sign, devoid of curtains and open to the small bathroom. Here, amidst brass and porcelain fixtures, mauve and lavender tiles, grey-and-black curtains, she began and ended her working days. The hot water soothed her. The long soak gave her time to think.
Thinking time was what Evelyn cherished most. While soak-ing in the steaming tub, she paid no mind to her body. It mat-tered little to her that forty-seven years of life steadily left their tracks on her. The face that lined a bit more with every frown of deep concentration, the hair that turned relentlessly from black to frost, the flesh that would someday slowly surrender to the pull of gravity-these were invisible to her.
The unceasing thoughts continued to buzz within her. In-side, she was eternally young, unaging in her enthusiasm.
After half an hour spent in meditation, the water had be-come chilly. In that time, Evelyn had reviewed her schedule for the day and given further thought to the ramifications of her research. She turned on the tap to fill a stoneware pitcher with tepid water. A loud, sloshing waterfall substituted for the tub's nonexistent shower. After a few jugs worth of rinsing, she toweled dry and dressed for the day in her usual clothes.
She favored dark clothing. She'd once commented to a col-league that she preferred primary colors such as white and black. Or blends-grey, off-white, and off-black.
Today she wore black. Only a small triangular wedge showed through at the apex of her lab coat's lapels. The coat-as clean and white as modern laundering could offer-was one of seven that she owned. One for each workday, plus a spare for emer-gency calls.
With a grunt, Dr. Fletcher hefted a heavy briefcase, filled to its tattered limits with papers, charts, abstracts, and research. Her right hand clutched her black instrument bag. She had never owned a purse on the theory that carrying feminine items would only weigh her down.
As she did every workday, she locked her apartment door's triple set of deadbolts, dropped the oversized ring of keys into her lab coat pocket, toted her burden down to a faded blue Saab that was only half her age, and threw the bags into the back seat. They landed with satisfying squeaks on the torn upholstery.
She hesitated before climbing into the driver's seat. Gazing out of the carport, she saw that the sun had come up over feathery white cirrus clouds. A breeze from the sea blew smog inland from Torrance, bringing with it a fresh smell. Dew from the night before misted on shake roofs, cool night air surrendering to morning's warmth. It would be a good day.
II
Valerie Dalton stared blankly at the line of men and women before her. She hadn't seen them from the parking lot. Only when she reached the level of the sidewalk leading to the Re-productive Endocrinology wing of Bayside University Medical Center did she realize that some sort of protest was in progress.
The men and women dressed in the casual style endemic in Southern California. Their children accompanied them in an elliptical march along the sidewalk. The signs they carried were neatly printed in bright DayGlo colors.
Abortion Is Murder read several of the signs. End the Si-lent Holocaust read another. One, held by a young woman, said Abortion Kills Unborn Feminists, Too!
Valerie took a deep breath. She had seen such displays on TV but hadn't considered that she would ever need
