Rosamund
At one in the morning, I stood at the window and pressed my hand flat against my stomach.
I looked down at my hand. It rested where it had been resting for hours now, against the flat of my belly, my fingers spread wide as though I could feel something through skin and muscle and bone.
I felt like a mother mourning the death of her child, and it made me realise how much I'd wanted it, and now that it didn't turn out the way I wanted, I was filled with a deep sense of loss.
The physician had come at sundown.
I'd listened without interrupting him, and when he finished, I thanked him and watched him leave. Then I'd crossed to the window and stood here, and I hadn't moved since.
The news he'd brought had numbed me, and every time I tried to think about it, my mind would slip into turmoil. Every ember of hope within me had died, replaced only with a wistfulness, and I wished more than anything that things had turned out different.
I heard the door open behind me.
