HARRIET MCKNIGHT #4: Plan B

Artwork by Minna Leunig
Artwork by Minna Leunig
WHEN IT HAPPENS, we’re both stunned. Our eyes wide, we ask each other, ‘do you think any got in?’ We should have been more careful, gone to the doctor’s, made time for that stupid appointment, found out our options. There’s got to be more available than the usual things. Don’t they have a male pill yet?

We type it in Google.

‘Intercourse, emergency contraception, complications,’ you say. ‘Why do they have to make you feel like you’ve done something wrong?’

That afternoon we go to the chemist together. I make you buy it, say it’s a small town, that people know me here. We stand in the kitchen as I swallow the little capsule and joke about how much plastic they use to house one little pill. When I finish my glass of water, you say, ‘there goes our first born.’ For the few days afterwards, you fall asleep with your palm cupping my belly.