The closet in my room had filled up as I found more and more clothes that Lily had stored for decades. She was shorter than me, and I think she’d had bigger boobs when she was young, but most of the clothes she gave me fit pretty well. I hadn’t been wearing them, though, and I knew today wasn’t the day to start. I needed my own clothes.
I pulled out a 1950s thin-strapped dress that flowed to my knees in little pleats, and brought it with me into the bathroom. It was a bit wrinkled from being stuffed behind Lily’s old clothes in the closet, which made me a little twitchy, but I hoped the steam from my shower would take care of the issue. I tried to clear my mind as the shower poured over me, but I didn’t succeed, and my hands were shaky as I applied thick black eyeliner above my lashes, forcing me to wipe it off and reapply it three times before I got it right.
To say that I was a mess by the time I pulled my dress on would be an understatement. I was on the verge of tears, a situation that was so far from common it made me even more upset, and as I tried and failed to pull up the zipper at my side, I let out a frustrated screech.
What the fuck was going on with me? The fucking zipper wouldn’t move more than an inch up my side, no matter how much I sucked in my belly. Beneath my armpit the dress gaped a good three inches, assuring me that it wasn’t going to close without cutting off my boobs.
I stormed out toward my room, yelling at Gram that I was fine as she stood at the end of the hallway looking at me in confusion. Goddamn son of a bitch. The dress was too small. Okay, so I’d try another, even if that meant that I’d have to redo my makeup to match something new.
The next dress I tried didn’t have a zipper, but wouldn’t pull down over my boobs or up over my hips. The one after that had buttons that wouldn’t close. I finally decided on a small halter that was stretchy enough to fit over the girls, but the high-waist shorts that went with it wouldn’t fucking button.
By the time I made it downstairs, my room a mess and my face sweaty, I was wearing a lime-green pair of leggings and a Wham! T-shirt that hung off one shoulder. I’d thrown my hair into a side pony, and added a little blue eye shadow to my eyes and called it good, my irritation too far gone to make any more changes.
“I’m having a fucking salad,” I announced as I walked into the kitchen. Gram and Lily were setting biscuits and gravy on the table, and my mouth watered as I walked right past them toward the fridge.
“Why the hell would you do that?” Lily asked as she sat down.
“Because eating your food is making it so I don’t fit into any of my freaking clothes,” I griped, searching for any type of greens I could find. “Where the fuck is the lettuce?”
Gram huffed as she sat down and started serving up three plates. “Need to go grocery shopping. Unless you want to eat a cucumber I got from the garden this morning, you’re outta luck. Sit down so we can eat.”
I slammed the door shut, irritated as hell, and stomped over to the table. The food smelled really good and for the first time in my life, I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t hungry. “Nothing fits,” I announced, pulling my plate across the table. “I need to start being more careful or I’m gonna start busting out of Lily’s housedresses.”
I shoved a bite of food into my mouth and watched as Lily and Gram’s concerned eyes met. “What?” I asked, my mouth still full.
“Honey, if my food could make women grow breasts, I wouldn’t still be living in a broken-down old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. I’d be in a villa in Greece with a cabana boy feeding me grapes and fanning me with palm fronds,” Lily said, laying a paper napkin on her lap.
I swallowed my food in embarrassment and drew my own napkin onto my lap. I was eating like the little piglet Cody had called me when we first got together. It took a few moments for her words to sink in and when they did, I was confused.
“Huh?”
“Darlin’, it ain’t the food that’s making your boobs and your belly grow,” Gram informed me, reaching out to grab the butter from the middle of the table.
They were speaking calmly as if about the weather, but there was some sort of undercurrent that I wasn’t quite grasping. I looked from one to the other, trying to read their faces, but still couldn’t figure it out.
And then I did, and I burst out laughing. “What?” I gasped. “I’m not pregnant!”
Gram scowled. “You sure as hell are.”
“No, I’m really not. I haven’t had a period in like three years. My shit doesn’t work right. No period, no getting pregnant.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“You been to the doctor?” Lily asked cautiously, glancing at Gram and then back to me.
“Well, not in a while, no. But when I went a couple years ago, he said I probably wasn’t ovulating because I had so little body fat. He thought it would probably correct itself if I ever got bigger, but it never did.” I looked between them, trying to make them understand. “I haven’t had a period in three years. I’m not pregnant.”
It was quiet at the table for a few moments, all of us looking at one another, before Gram spoke.
“Unless you got pregnant the first time you ovulated,” she told me seriously, making my stomach drop. “I know you, Farrah, and I know pregnancy. You’re pregnant.”
My chair screeched across the floor as I stood up, unable to remain sitting any longer. “I haven’t seen Cody for three months! Who got me pregnant? Lily?”