The Choices We Make by Karma Brown

one who really needed protection from her confession—it was as though she sliced right through my middle with her paring knife. She looked at me then, and my face must have said it all.
    â€œShit, Hannah. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that... With everything you and Ben have been going through, that was majorly insensitive of me. It was just such a surprise, and I’m a mess. My brain has been taken over by this baby.” She put down her knife and lay a lemon-juice-wet hand over mine. I tried to smile, then told her I was glad she was keeping the baby, and could tell it made her feel better.
    I watched her cut another lemon, noting her smooth, blond ponytail, pink-hued cheeks and diamond stud earrings, all of it pretty and purposeful. Life was so fucking unfair at times. She had the thing I wanted more than anything—even worse, she got it by accident when I had been trying for years. And I had what she wanted: infertility, the perfect excuse to justify a child-free life.

18
    KATE
    Things had been tense with David ever since the other night, and I was getting antsy with the cold civility in our house. I wasn’t angry anymore—that had faded after a day or so along with my self-righteousness. It was a lot to ask of him, to accept my proposal outright. I knew that going in, but I had really believed he would see it from my perspective.
    I wished I could talk to my mom about it, and I’d tried to at her grave site. But no matter how comforting people say it is to have a place to visit the people you’ve lost, the reality is you’re talking to a slab of granite that can’t talk back.
    Tonight was board game night, this time at Ben and Hannah’s, and we had just left the girls with a sitter. At fifteen dollars an hour. Just one more reason to miss my mom—not only did we not have to pay her, we always came home to folded laundry, a clean kitchen, and girls who had learned something new from their doting and creative grandmother. Like how to plant an indoor mini–herb garden, or how to crack eggs using only one hand and a butter knife, or how to turn baking soda, vinegar, red food coloring and a plastic soda bottle covered in papier-mâché into an erupting volcano.
    The cab dropped us off in front of Hannah and Ben’s place, a row house that was typical in Noe Valley. It had been restored inside and out to both keep the architectural details—like the gingerbread lining the roof and the spindles on the porch—and to add some luxuries, like heated floors in the bathroom and kitchen, and a glassed-in sunporch off the back. The house belonged to Ben’s parents, and Hannah and Ben rented from them, which was why they were actually able to afford the pretty Victorian in a neighborhood where homes ran well over a million and a half dollars.
    We stood on the front step and I rang the doorbell, the chime echoing through the house. David shifted beside me, and I tried to ignore the dull headache behind my eyes and the tingling in my fingertips, forcing a smile as Ben opened the door, scents of spice and something dark and sweet welcoming us in. The sounds of a mixer filled the front hallway, nearly masking the music—Buena Vista Social Club—that Hannah loved and always played when she cooked.
    Hannah was in the kitchen, as per usual, her apron covered in dark splotches and the electric beater in her hand. She held a spatula in the other hand and was diving it into the bowl, scraping the sides. I kissed her cheek and peered into the deep red mixing bowl.
    â€œWhatcha making?”
    â€œMexican chocolate bread pudding,” she said. “Left out the raisins though, just for you.”
    â€œYou really do love me,” I said. I despised raisins—their wrinkly flesh sticking in your teeth for hours. I dipped my finger in the bowl, then popped it in my mouth. “So good,” I murmured.
    â€œYou know there are raw eggs in