The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut Universe, #1)

by Mary Robinette Kowal

My husband was a good man. He believed in me. And he also had a huge blind spot, because he didn’t see how people would ignore what I said until he repeated it.

What really angers me when my body betrays me like this—and I try to focus on the anger—is that I haven’t always been terrified of crowds. But I can’t shake the memory of being in college and all those young men staring at me. And the mockery. The teasing. The … the hate.

“You’d think it was a war wound, the way everyone is carrying on over him.” She opened her binder, pretending to pay attention to Clemons. “I hear that the reason he had to have surgery was to reduce the size of the rod up his ass.”