So . . . I noticed you staring at my über-hot blind date. Missing your single days? Or does he remind you of someone who made you feel, oh, I don’t know . . . sick, maybe? Not much of a plan.
“So . . . I haven’t asked about your baby at all!” My excitement sounded false. “How far along are you? Eight months?”
She was silent.
Shit. She probably thought I was snooping like Maureen. I was at a loss for what to say next, but as seconds passed, I worried my gaffe wasn’t the problem.
“You okay in there?” Maybe she was sick. “Do you need me to get Adam?” After another anxious second, I heard a choking noise, and I streaked from worry to panic all over again. “Cara?” My hand was already turning the knob, “I’m coming in!” If she was peeing, she was going to be really embarrassed, but after what I’d seen . . . I peeked around the door and found her sitting on the closed lid, listing heavily to starboard like an overladen ship.
“Oh, no!” I knelt on the tile, draping her dress across her stomach and knees. The poor thing was so bloated, sitting there in her bra and pregnancy panties, her skin stretched around the mass of her womb in a way that was painful to see. Fat tears splashed on the dress, splattering the peach lace with salty misery.
“Oh, honey! I’m so sorry. Are you crying about the spider?” More tears. “Or about . . . about how far along you are? You know that doesn’t matter, don’t you?” I patted her knees, afraid to hug her for fear she’d lose her balance. She shouldn’t be sitting like that, not as far along as she was, but her tears just kept coming as if I wasn’t even there.
“Cara, I’m only guessing . . . the last thing I want to do is make you feel worse, but . . . Maureen would never in a million years have meant to make you feel bad or anything. You know that, right?
“It was the same for me with my daughter. It happens. But my marriage wasn’t like yours,” I hurried to add. “You’re in love, and nothing else’ll matter as soon as you hold your little one for the first time. I promise! Okay?”
She didn’t answer, and suddenly I realized I hadn’t seen the angels or dark things since Adam had grabbed me. Maybe she wasn’t just crying. Maybe she was in pain? Or the baby! Maybe they needed to go to the hospital? I really didn’t want to try to see anything—I cringed just remembering. Besides, maybe I’d overreacted? I didn’t have a frame of reference to make any judgments about the specks, and angels were there, too . . .
Cara’s silent tears continued to spill over her thick lashes and down her pallid cheeks, but just when I’d decided to get Adam, she seized my hand and kept me on my knees. Interminable seconds passed, but I made myself be still, sensing she was trying to decide whether to talk. If she would just tell me something—anything—that might give me a clue about what those dark things represented, maybe I could help somehow. If she only knew me, she’d know that nothing would sound weird. And nothing could be as embarrassing as how much I embarrassed myself every day. I couldn’t keep a wry smile from forming on my lips, yet for whatever reason, that seemed to convince her.
She took a shaky breath and closed her eyes. Her voice was so low I strained to hear her words, but the combination of shame and fear was more than audible.
“I’m only five months pregnant.” She reopened her eyes and focused their brown depths on me. “Not eight. And I didn’t—I mean, Adam and I weren’t . . . ”
“Oh, honey, it’s—”
“No,” she whispered, “It’s not okay. I shouldn’t be pregnant.”
Many Versions of Normal
The acoustics from the twenty-second step enabled his augmented hearing to monitor the voices three walls away. The hormones and other biochemicals washing through his body were a hindrance, but he was trained to ignore their physical disruptions. Trained to compensate and maintain equanimity. Trained to focus—in spite of distracting emotions like irritation and disgust and . . . something else, some emotion he was not as familiar with.
He listened to the young woman’s weeping confession as she told Lila of her alarm in realizing she was pregnant, that she truly did not know how she had become impregnated, and that—astonishingly—the adam had believed her. The polished balustrade creaked under his grip and he willed his fingers to release the strangled wood. It would not do to leave any unusual marks behind. His presence was already too noted, having spent the evening in the girl’s company.
He had heard all he needed to know. The details would be researched by the Revisory team as they assessed and resolved the problem. His job now was merely to report and to disappear before the humans could make a connection between himself and the tragedy they would perceive. Yet he lingered on the stairway.
Humans usually reciprocated confidences as a gesture of mutual trust. It seemed likely that Lila would tell the distraught girl about her own secret, especially since that secret must have triggered the drama she utilized to sequester her.
Shock. That was one aspect of what he was feeling. He was shocked. Stunned, that Lila—a human!—had somehow discerned the girl’s pregnancy was unnatural when he had not. There was another emotional component though . . .
He heard her murmur soothing placations, telling the younger female not to be fearful, that everything would be fine, and that she believed her. His diaphragm contracted, producing an audible displacement of air. Of course she believed her! How could she not when she herself was abnormal? He pictured her face as she spoke, blue eyes darkened by dilating pupils, skin paled by capillaries contracting in response to
