She takes a long, exaggerated sniff of the air. “And we best change Dakey’s diaper before I bring him to see Charlotte.”

Char will lose whatever’s left of her mind when she hears Peggy call her child a goofy nickname like Dakey, and I’d like to be there to see it happen. Instead, I’ll be under a paper sheet on a table in the diagnostic imaging wing of the hospital, waiting for the ultrasound tech to tell me which everyday item my fetus’s size most closely resembles. Which, it turns out, is a fourteen-week-old lemon. This lemon has un-webbed fingers and toes. Its eyes and ears have moved into non-alien position. It can squint and grimace, flail its arms and kick its feet, drink and piss out amniotic fluid. I swore I wasn’t going to look at the screen. I kept my eyes clamped shut. I put my hands over them when they tried to flutter open. But at the last minute, I peeked through a crack in the wall of tears and fingers, only to see a little embryonic arse float toward the ultrasound transducer and wiggle.

As she’s wiping what remains of the now-warm goo off my belly, the ultrasound tech tells me that they just had the MRI machine free up because the old bird who was supposed to have hers this morning up and died. Ever alert to opportunities to get me a medical test because somebody else kicked the bucket, Dr. Divyaratna put me in the slot. Which means I also get to see what everyday items compare best to the sizes of Parry Homunculus, Ziggy Stardust, and Fuzzy Wuzzy. Last time, it was a June bug, a nickel, and a cranberry, ­respectively.

As the cold MRI bed slides in to the circular sarcophagus, it occurs to me that there’s a race happening in my body now. Who can grow faster, my baby or my tumours? As the magnetic din of doom begins to whizz and whir around my head, it occurs to me that maybe Peggy had a point. Maybe my squirrelly vision could be useful. A bit of a blessing even, albeit well disguised.

When the MRI tech’s voice comes over the internal speaker saying, “Miss Fortune, you’re wiggling. Please try to hold still,” it occurs to me that I should have pissed between the ultrasound and the MRI.

I wait for Dr. Divyaratna in a tiny closet of an office. When she enters, her nose is buried in a file folder, and she almost forgets to dispense her usual measured dose of bedside manner before getting down to business.

“Good day, Stacey.” She places a steady hand on my shoulder as she makes her way to her desk. “I heard of your mother’s tragic accident. Allow me to extend my deepest sympathies.”

I do the sad smile and silent nod thing.

“So. Fourteen weeks pregnant. How would you like to proceed in light of this situation?”