The Aesthetician

There are people you must tell, people who knew you were pregnant: the lady who wanted to start the book club, your boss, the Russian woman who waxes you.

Today, she has your leg lifted in the air and you remember absently, something in her voice, how she once told you of her brother, back home, how he suffers from schizophrenia. The winters, she had said, are the worst.

Now, she clicks her tongue at you. Exercising? she says. Not when you are with a baby! In my culture, she tells you, it is believed that a pregnant woman carries a bundle of glass. Glass, she repeats. Too fragile. She shakes her head.

The g in her fragile is a hard g, the g of fragments, of figments, of figs. She lifts your other leg, and you think again of broken things. Outside, the sun is warm, maybe the last really warm sun of the year. Don't worry. You'll be back in it soon.