It's the worst time in the nation's history of reproductive laws for someone like Katherine, who doesn't want a child, to learn she's pregnant. In this environment, not having a child will be a challenge.
Katherine isn't afraid of a challenge.
29 ye...
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In her nearly complete avoidance of the outside world to hide her nine-month pregnancy, an avoidance Graham seemed more than happy to accommodate by taking over the majority of her store duties, Katherine sat in the kitchen and watched the falling snow.
It was ten in the morning. The Oxford stores' quiet hour, the only time of day she would sneak out to make her short visits, was still four hours away.
The Daily Fact sat unread in front of her, the weekly insert removed and set aside. Typically it would have been in the trash, but to distract herself while waiting—four hours, one day, the final excruciating week—she would read every word of every issue, but not until the time of day when sitting and waiting became unbearable. She always saved the paper for last.
For now she would watch the snow.
It fell so predictably these days that it failed, this time, to induce the hoped-for mental escape.
At a jab to her inside, she got up from the table and stood in one spot.
Surely there was something to do for the store from home, before her visit. Being at home hardly had to mean she was entirely useless. She slid the phone toward her on the counter and dialed Oxford I.
"Please check the wine labels," she told the new clerk. "Customers turn them when they browse. They should all be face-out."
"Yes, Ms. Oxford."
"Every single one."
"Yep. Will do."
Katherine hung up. The snow continued to fall. It would be nice if there were a hard wind to blow it sideways.
Her back hurt.
It was a problem, really. The snow. A much larger problem than her own problem. Fatal in some cases.
She sat to think about it.
She and Graham, while not yet technically wealthy, were fortunate enough to find the snow only a minor nuisance, because they had invested in a truck and plow at the first forecast of heavy precipitation and lasting cold temperatures. But those without the means or the foresight to have bought their own plows had difficulty finding one for hire, the Fact had recently reported. Until now there had been no reason for anyone to create such a business. (Those who had made a quick business of it only targeted the wealthy, charging the maximum of what they believed the wealthy would be willing to pay. The wealthy were willing to pay a lot.)
Katherine's right leg begged to stretch. She stretched it. Next, it was the left. The right leg again, and again the left, but no matter how hard she stretched the nerves in her thighs continued to jump. She heaved herself out of her chair and paced the kitchen with her focus on the window.
Low income neighborhoods. They suffered the most, their roads channels of chest-deep snow. This was something she had seen, herself. A trench occasionally appeared where a desperate pedestrian had burrowed a path, but it inevitably ended not far from where it had begun, the exhausted soul having given up and turned back. Where there was a cleared road in an impoverished neighborhood, it was typically a throughway carved by a plow owner who needed to get to the other side, and where it led was of no use to anyone but the driver.
