Delicate Condition

by Danielle Valentine

I think we all believe, somewhere deep in our bones, that darkness is fickle and easily placated with small gifts. My favorite superstition is the one that says more women deliver during a full moon than at any other time of the month. Transforming into mothers instead of wolves. Howling like wild things.

She’d been staring at something on the sidewalk, transfixed. But then she looked up and saw me and immediately turned around, head ducked, walking briskly away.

a single blue egg smashed open, spilling yolk and a half-formed embryo on the concrete.

That’s when I heard it, a soft click, the shutter release sound a phone made when you took a picture. When I looked around, the woman from the clinic—Ms. Preecher—was hurrying down the

street shoving her phone into her pocket, intentionally not looking at me.

I started to turn around, thinking I might

run after her and ask her to please delete the photo, offer to take a selfie with her instead, but I was distracted by another woman standing across the street, looking my way. She was wearing a blue baseball cap and big sunglasses. It was the same cap-and-sunglasses combo I’d seen outside my townhouse back in Brooklyn. The same woman I’d seen back in Brooklyn.

How much more was I going to be expected to sacrifice to make this happen? I’d already given my body, my hormones, my time. And now, it seemed, my mind. And I wasn’t even pregnant yet.

I stopped walking and lifted my face to his for a kiss. As I turned my head, I noticed a slim figure from the corner of my eye: a woman in a blue baseball cap peering out from behind a tree just a few steps away, silently watching us.

“You know how, in old fairy tales, the women are always having to make some horrible exchange to get pregnant? I keep thinking about what I would exchange. Or I guess, what I wouldn’t exchange. And the answer is nothing. I would pay any price if it meant I got to be a mother.” “Okay,” Siobhan said, playing along. “So, the Devil appears right now and says, ‘Hey girl—’” “The Devil talks like a bad pickup artist?” “Of course. He says, ‘Hey girl, I’ll give you a baby tomorrow, but in exchange I want your soul for eternity.’ What do you do?” I didn’t even have to think about it. “I’d want to know where to sign.”

I’d been staring at the little square on my calendar for a long time, memorizing it, and so I saw the exact moment the appointment changed, 11 a.m. smoothly transforming into 12 p.m.

The beach, I realized a moment later. I’d never told Emily that Talia’s house was on a private beach.

Talia— business partner to Dex.