I’m lying in bed, half asleep, when I feel it. As tentative and hesitant as a tap on the door; barely more than a flutter in my belly. I recognize it from Isabel. The quickening. Such a beautiful, biblical term.
I lie there, enjoying it, waiting for more kicks. A few come, then a tumbling movement that might or might not be a somersault. Maternal love and wonder wash over me, so much so that I start to cry. How could I ever have considered aborting this child? Looking back, it seems almost inconceivable. I smile through my tears at the pun.
Wide awake now, I swing my legs out of bed, looking down at my changing body. I’m still not at the stage where strangers make unprompted remarks—according to a chart I found at work, my baby is now roughly the size of an avocado—but, naked, you couldn’t miss that I’m pregnant. My breasts sag low and full, and my belly has taken on a comfortable roundness.
I walk toward the bathroom, amused to see I’m waddling slightly even though I surely don’t need to yet—the muscle memory of motherhood, settling around my body like a familiar coat. Something goes wrong with the shower—the warm water suddenly turns icy—but it’s invigorating. Idly, I wonder if the house is having trouble recognizing me now I have another person inside me. I don’t think technology works like that, but I really don’t know much about it.
I’m toweling myself dry when I feel a twinge of nausea. I sit down on the toilet seat, trying to breathe it away, but then it comes back, twice as bad. There’s no time to do anything but plunge forward and aim my mouth in the direction of the shower. I turn on the taps to wash the vomit away.
The glass around the shower is flecked with water marks now, so I get down on my knees to polish it. I’m crouching down to clean the notch that runs along the base of the wall, my face almost at floor level, when I see something glint in there, catching the light. It’s too far back for my fingers to reach, so I find a cotton bud and carefully prize it out.
At first I think I’ve just found a piece of grit, or perhaps a ball bearing. Then I see the tiny hole running through it. It’s a pearl; quite small, an unusual pale-cream color. It must have come off my necklace.
I go to the bedroom and find the necklace in its case. The loose pearl looks the same as all the others, certainly. But the necklace isn’t broken.
I can’t see how the pearl escaped if the string isn’t broken. It’s impossible, like a logic puzzle, a riddle.
There’s a jeweler’s opposite Still Hope’s offices. I decide to take it there and ask.