Karen is used to ghosts over her shoulder. After all, she had passed thirty-five. Ex-lovers, family members she feels estranged from, friends who were once like sisters whom she never speaks with anymore, all her grandparents gone now as well . . . But she’s never been haunted like she has been for the past few days. And she’s shocked to discover that there is apparently this whole level of regretful haunting she never even knew existed. This whole thing has been a huge mistake. And it’s only becoming clear to her now. At first, while the pregnancy had still existed, she’d had no idea what to do, none at all. And it wasn’t that she’d listed out the pros and cons and weighted them accordingly and then couldn’t make a decision, no, it was that when she had even tried to think about it in terms of options, of choosing among alternatives, there had instead been this blankness, a white frictionless surface so smooth every thought of hers had slid off it. Not that there hadn’t been feelings, but there’d been no explicit naming of the decisions possible, no enumeration; when her consciousness called for plans of action her unconsciousness simply refused to serve her up anything. When she had cast her nets of thought no fish were caught. Today she has been reassuring herself that nothing was wrong with her, and that one-third of all pregnancies ended in spontaneous abortion. She hadn’t wanted it, not at all, but she felt like something darkly momentous had happened and she had been changed for the worse somehow, tainted. Even now, looking around, it is as if the city had become a playground, and sitting outside the cafe sipping her tea she watches the families stroll by and feels that something had broken irreversibly in her at the same time that the knot of blood had released on Sunday, something untied, bloody fingers unclasping from a tightly clenched fist, and synchronously something even deeper, a supporting subterranean structure, had cracked in response and wept its heartblood. She had spent the weekend drifting from bedroom to bathroom clutching a heating pad to her stomach and moaning whenever she sat down. Should she stop seeing him? Is this part of the plan, that grand plan she’s had since she was nineteen to become a successful, independent woman scientist? Because this didn’t feel like it was part of that plan. No, this was a sign from a God she doesn’t know if she believes in, this is revelation time, this is get-your-fucking-life-together time. A mask is settling, being fitted, she is discarding things in this cafe, coming to conclusions. Behind her, on the metal chair that is hot in the sun, she will leave a molted skin. Outwardly, however, there is calm. She quietly sips at her tea, she eats the cookie in little dainty bites with one hand held underneath to catch crumbs. When the bill comes, she signs her name with surety.