Leonora

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 *** TW: The below story contains reference to pregnancy loss ***

The door slams. On one side of it, the other side, Leonora’s entire life. Chris has evaporated from their life together, that much is clear. The pregnancy she was carrying is now over. Her head feels full of crushed ice.

Leonora sits on the chocolate brown couch, purchased because it was unlikely to show stains of a future child doing childish things, dropping ice creams, spilling drinks, smushing playdough into the sides for fun. She sits on the edge of the couch, perches, hands clenched into fists on her knees, as if she were a young rugby player waiting for a team photo to be taken. She stares blankly ahead.

After a moment, reacting to the sound of a quiet engine starting, Leonora looks to her right, out of the large bay windows, at the grey Mitsubishi Outlander reversing out of the driveway. A car chosen for its high safety rating. It doesn’t matter now.

“Look, Leo,” she can hear Chris in her head, feeling each word like a knife to her chest, “I know you didn’t mean for it to happen. But, the books all say, don’t they? I mean – sashimi? You really couldn’t have waited?”

Then, flashes of the emergency room. The dark coloured pyjamas, the grey cardigan. Her grey skin tone reflected in the shiny panel behind the triage nurse. After consistent vomiting and sensing a lack of movement, she had arrived, doubled over, unsure how she’d been carried across to a bed. Had it been her own feet? Surely not.

Leonora moved her hands, in the present, to grip the couch on either side of her, aware of a sense she was looking down at her own body from above, that if she didn’t grip tightly she may float away entirely.

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