Reluctantly Home

by Imogen Clark

He couldn’t leave her. He was all she had left, the only thing connecting her with her other life, her real life. If he walked out now, then she would be trapped in this new, fake world forever.

She had always defined herself by what she did rather than by who she was, by what she wore on the outside instead of what was happening on the inside. Status had shaped each part of her, moulding her into what she had become. So where did that leave her now it was all gone? Drifting with neither rudder to steer her nor anchor to hold her safe. It was terrifying.

She could fix it, go back to the way things were before with a simple appointment. It wasn’t illegal any more. She wouldn’t have to seek out some dirty backstreet clinic. This was the 1970s. It was her right as a woman to choose what she did with her own body. Evelyn contemplated the irony of this, considering how she had got into this mess in the first place.

A switch had been flicked in her head, a voice giving her the previously withheld permission. ‘You may now cry,’ it said. ‘Please commence forthwith.’