She took up smoking, an old habit from the lab that she had quit to try to get pregnant. Unable to eat, she lost twenty-five pounds and ended up in the Harvard infirmary, where she watched, alarmed, as they took away her shoelaces. Her single scientist friends visited and offered to have sex with her, thinking she was just lonely. She thanked them for their kindness but declined. She wasn’t lonely; she missed Brooke.
