Chapter 12

“Congratulations, ma’am! You’re four and a half weeks pregnant,” Dr. Shaw, the physician attending to me, said, her face lit up with a wide, genuine smile.

I sat frozen in place, my hands gripping the armrests of the chair tightly. “What?” I screeched so loudly that Dr. Shaw winced.

Her smile faltered slightly. “You’re pregnant,” she repeated, though the cheerfulness in her voice was now tinged with hesitation, as if she expected me to bolt out of the room.

My mind went numb, racing in a hundred directions all at once. Pregnant? How could that be? “But how? This can’t be true. I can’t be pregnant… you don’t understand!”

Fatima, standing next to me, let out a long sigh. “Prisca, did you by any chance have... random sex with someone? Maybe an ex-boyfriend or something?”

I barely heard her as my mind began to piece things together, trying to make sense of this impossible news. Pregnant? I hadn’t had sex since moving to London. My stomach dropped as realization hit me like a punch to the