I never saw him. I was under sedation when the contractions expelled the little corpse, and of course they didn’t keep him around to show me. They said he looked normal for four months, which I know would mean a slimy aquatic creature, small in the palm of your hand.

Evy excused herself from the procedure, for which I think I’m grateful. It would feel odd if she had seen him and I had not.

All my life I’ve had problems off and on with anxiety and depression, and I know that most of it has nothing to do with the things that happen to me. The feelings are endogenous; my glands sometimes make chemicals that are inappropriate for everyday living, so brain and body go into emergency modes of operation.

Knowing this only helps after the fact. While the chemicals are in charge, the world is a terrifying place, or a black one.

And sometimes there are exogenous factors. Two rapes, not counting one playground attack. Being kidnapped. A lover murdered, a better one lost. And along with everyone else I have 16 March 2085, ten billion people dead or doomed.

So compared to all that, what is losing a problematical fetus, months away from being remotely human? It is approximately like having a planet roll over you. They cleaned me up and put me in a fresh bed with hospital-smell sheets that I couldn’t stop chewing and sucking on, and if these bodies came with an ON/OFF switch, you wouldn’t be reading this.

So I’m better now. I wrote a lot of the Earth journal with an antique fountain pen Benny bought me on Forty-seventh Street, and right after he died I was writing and a tear fell on the wet ink and made a swirling blue exploding star. I had to laugh, thinking what his reaction would have been to the melodramatic splash. He was pretty tough, for a poet, for anybody. So now I’m crying onto an electric keyboard, which is probably against some safety rule.

BLUES

Dinner was more interesting than usual, the ag people unveiling a mutated strain of Basmati rice, served with a reasonably tender goat curry. O’Hara and Daniel exercised privilege of rank and took Evy to Dining Room A, where the tables were small enough for three to sit alone together, though the menu was the same as all over ’Home: goat curry or whatever you managed to swipe from the kitchens.

After dinner they had coffee and a cup of sweet wine. “I went to see Dr. Carlucci today,” O’Hara said. It was a week after the miscarriage.

“Problems?” Dan said. He touched her hand.

“Not really. I still feel pregnant, though, and sad. Both normal.”

“Did he have any words of wisdom?” Evy said.

O’Hara poured some water into her wine. Dan winced. “He wants me to try again, as soon as possible. Ex utero this time.”