a smile. Just a flick of the lips. But it’s something. “I’m okay.” My voice sounds like rocks scraping together. “It’s morning sickness, I think.”
Rita smirks. “Afternoon sickness, you mean?”
“I, um…” I clear my throat. “I’ve been queasy for days. Doesn’t really matter what time it is.”
“Mmm,” Rita acknowledges. “That must be nice, though.”
My face must show my confusion. “No, sorry,” Rita says. “I didn’t mean it’s nice that you feel sick. That part sucks, I’m sure. I meant—it must be nice to have that constant reminder that there’s a baby inside you.”
She stands abruptly, making me jump. “I’ll get you a snack,” she says. “Maybe it’ll settle your stomach.”
A minute passes, there’s clattering in the kitchen, and I’m alone in this empty room. But am I alone? Am I unwatched? The thought returns: I might be next. It adds itself to my already too-long list—women on someone’s radar, women who are next—and my heart becomes a fist.
When Rita returns, she’s carrying a plate and a chef’s knife. “Here,” she says, placing the plate on the coffee table. “The crackers should help with the nausea. And the cheese… Well. I like cheese. And maybe it’ll… solidify things in there?”
She points to my stomach with the knife, and my eyes widen. I know she’s just gesturing—doesn’t mean it as threatening—but I cross my arms over my belly anyway.
Rita kneels in front of the coffee table, begins slicing up the cheese. I watch the blade as it glides through a block of cheddar.
“I feel like I should mention…” she begins, her voice slightly cooler than before, “I know that Astrid probably told you about”—the knife pauses—“the problems we were having.” The cutting resumes. “But that wasn’t anything, really. Just regular couple stuff.”
She looks at me, and I can tell she’s waiting for me to agree before she continues. “Of course,” I say. “All couples… argue. From time to time.”
“Right,” she says. “Exactly. Because like I said, we’re still trying for a family. That’s the most important thing to Astrid. And to me. And we’ll pick back up with it as soon as she comes home.”
She takes a bite of her cracker. “Anyway,” she says, “tell me something about Astrid.”
I pause. My legs stiffen. “What do you mean?” I ask.
She grabs the knife and starts sliding it through the cheese again. “You must have some funny stories of her from your childhood. Especially from before.”
“Before?”
Her gaze is penetrating. “Before she was… fourteen,” she says. “I never got the chance to know that version of her. The version who wasn’t…” She pauses, searches for the word. “Marked. By everything that happened to her. So tell me something about my wife, from when she was still a kid.”
My mouth hangs open for a moment. It’s a reasonable request—one that anyone might ask of their wife’s childhood friend.
“Um…” I stall. I stare at the wedding photo on the hutch as if I could intuit something about Astrid through it alone. My heart thumps on and the room keeps filling with my silence. Then I notice it: even from across the room, I can see the freckle beneath the arch of Astrid’s eyebrow. My heartbeat stutters. Then, like someone who’s just crossed a finish line, it slows.
“She was always so good at calming me down,” I say.
Rita chews a piece of cheese, then cuts another. She watches me instead of the knife. Waits for me to continue.
“I’d get really anxious. And… and I’d panic,” I say. Rita stops chewing. Furrows her brow. “At school, I mean. Tests and stuff. And she’d point to the freckle under her eyebrow. She’d tell me to…”
Look at this.
The words are a whisper in my head. They’re faceless and bodiless. A series of breathy sounds without a mouth. But still, they echo. As if someone’s saying them from deep inside a well.
Look at this, I hear again. Look at this freckle. Concentrate on only this. As long as you can see this dark little dot, everything’s okay.
I look at Rita. Her eyes are unchanged, watchful as before. But mine are stinging.
“She’d tell me—tell me to look at the freckle under her eyebrow.” I stand up. Walk on shaky legs to the hutch and pick up the wedding photo. Point to the spot on Astrid’s skin. “This one here. She’d tell me to stare at it—whenever I was upset, I think. And she’d say that if I could see it, I’d…”