Chapter Seven

In which Lorinda learns something that threatens her big dream.

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Dec 18, 2023

Lorinda woke up early Monday morning after a rough night during which, when she did manage to sleep, she dreamed about being lost in a forest at night, or forgetting how to make the simplest cocktail, or being so hugely pregnant that she was unable to stand up. After she sent her parents off to work with kisses, she locked herself in her bathroom — her brother was still asleep, but better safe than sorry — picked up the box Emmie had given her, read the instructions and did as she was directed. The ten-minute wait for the results was excruciating, filled with thoughts of losing her position at PumpJack’s and being forced to live forever in her parents’ house, with no way to afford the childcare that would allow her to have a job.

When the ten minutes were up, she carefully opened the little envelope that contained the piece of shiny cardboard on which the results would appear. The circle in the middle had turned a deep, rusty red.

She was pregnant.

She gasped. But immediately, one of humanity’s more recently evolved survival mechanisms kicked in: denial. She hurried to her bedroom, grabbed her phone, and returned to the bathroom. Emmie picked up after one ring.

“Lor—”

“It says I’m pregnant,” Lorinda said. “Which is impossible.”

Emmie sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

“But … these tests can’t even work this fast. It takes weeks —”

“Not this one,” said Emmie. “It’s brand new. Uses a new hormone. And it’s made in —"

“But I told you!” Lorinda blurted, as though arguing on the phone would help. “We used …” — she lowered her voice even behind the closed door — “… a condom!”

We like our book!

“You said it was white? Did it have a gold star on it?”

“Ems … Jesus Christ, I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly looking carefully.”

“Did you see the little wrapper? Was it —”

“Red? Yeah. It had ‘Freedom’ printed on it. Look, couldn’t this just be a …whatchmacallit?”

“A false positive? No. That test is state-of-the-art. Listen …” Emmie took a breath. “Those Freedom condoms, they’re made by the government —”

“What government?”

“Your government. Our government. The CCSA. It has some fake company name on it but it’s the government.”

“So?”

“They’ve been making them for a couple of years,” Emmie said patiently. “And for a couple of years there have been reports from all over the CCSA that women using that condom are getting pregnant.”

Lorinda groped for a reply. “How … how …”

“A journal article I read says that a third of them, maybe more, have little pinholes in them.”

“WHAT?”

“It’s deliberate. They’re made to fail. And PS, that journal story was taken down three days after it went online. And the government denies everything. Of course.”

Lorinda fell silent.

“Lor—?”

Lorinda felt as if someone had hit her on the head with a shovel. She tried to wrestle her brain back into focus by staring at the pregnancy-test box on the counter next to the sink. “How can you be so sure this test works?”

“Look at the bottom of the box,” Emmie said.

Lorinda looked, but in her growing anger and disbelief she could hardly read the words. “What am I seeing?”

“You’re seeing ‘Made in USA.’ It’s in the small print down at the bottom.”

“So?”

“It means the thing is real, Lor. Those condoms are made-in-CCSA crap. The test is real. Brand new. USA. State of the art. I’m sorry, honey.”

Lorinda’s hands were shaking. She thought she was going to drop the phone. “Yeah. Look, Em, thanks. I gotta think …” She ended the call, then screamed louder than she knew she could scream: “Fuck those fuckers!” Scooping up the test box with her phone hand, she opened the bathroom door, stomped to her room, and slammed her door so hard that the framed picture of herself at age ten in her ceremonial baptism gown, accompanied by Pastor Doug and her parents grinning down at her, fell off the wall and crashed. Shards of glass flew across the floor. Again she screamed: “Fuck!”

“What’s going on?” Zeke groggily called from his room.

“Nothing!” she yelled. “Go back to sleep!”

She knelt down to deal with the mess and instantly cut her finger on a piece of glass she didn’t even see. Her eyes filled with tears. She had come so far! In envisioning her future life of excitement and possibility, she had dared to fantasize things that a year ago — a year? Two weeks ago! — would have been unimaginable. And those fantasies hadn’t been just some romantic teenage daydreams. She had earned them. And she was ready, she was eager, to keep earning them, and to make them come true.

But now all that was over.