I’d woken at 3 a.m. that morning, knowing something was wrong. My boobs weren’t sore any more and I felt completely normal – the previous abnormal suddenly standing and revealing itself, in all its utter abnormality. I’d forgotten how normal felt, but now I remembered. I felt distinctly un-pregnant. Googling led me to miscarriage chat rooms. I didn’t post anything, just read, really. I found a pregnancy message board and a bunch of posts from other panicking women who were terrified, alone, in the early morning, sharing their stories about this terrible unspoken thing that shouldn’t be a terrible unspoken thing, but is. I just woke up and found this … Can’t get back to sleep … Is it blood or is it mucus? It’s just a bit pink really, don’t you think? Anyone else had this? Anyone out there? It made me love the internet, briefly. It made me love women, everywhere, protectively. Maternally.

The day passed bloodlessly. I sat tight.

Then, in the theatre that night, beautifully, horribly, perfectly – it began. During a battle scene I felt a hot blip, and. And. I knew it, and it knew me, and it had come. I excused myself and ran to the toilet, checking the fabric as I vacated my seat. Thoughtful of me, don’t you think? Aren’t women The Best.

I sat on the toilet and stared at the back of the door, unsure how to feel. I was thankful no one knew, but I also had no one to share this with, now. I wanted Kelly. Not my mother. Kelly. I felt as though I had failed on some sort of fundamental level (YOU HAVE NO INTEGRITY …). Why was I so upset? I wasn’t even sure I’d wanted a baby (how can you, intelligently, want something so seismic and unknowable?). Was it hormones? Punctured pride? Or – darker, shall I even … yes, yes I must – was it that I was aware on some level of not getting what I’d paid for; what I’d ordered; what I’d felt was my right? Was this the dissatisfied customer in me? The irate little Western consumer? It was puzzling.

I packed my pants with loo roll and went back to my seat. Art looked at me enquiringly and took my hand.

‘I think I’m losing it.’

The ‘I’ then, not the ‘we’. It was mine then it was ours then it was mine again. I got both shitty ends of the stick.

‘Oh, babes.’

He squeezed. I heard the pity in his voice and I hated being pitied. I felt as though he’d lost respect for me, somehow. That I was reduced by the whole endeavour, and not in the way I expected.