![]() ![]() ![]() The convenience-store phonecard trembles in your hand when you call Stevie for directions to the trailer park. She’ll talk you into turning yourself in. Except for your mother’s funeral, you haven’t seen Stevie in eight years. You speed to the outskirts of Kingman, where your older sister Stevie lives. Long before you reach the Arizona border checkpoint you expect to be stopped, but when you get there the bored troopers wave you through. You jerk the wheel toward an exit, shifting lanes without checking your blind spots. The word tightens like a noose around your throat.Īll you’ve ever wanted is to be a mother. Your mother’s name, the name you picked for the baby girl you just left behind. You just don’t understand why it’s your fault. It has to be somebody’s fault - the courts, your neighbors, your own mother, they all say it has to be somebody’s fault. It’s not fair! You’ve accepted that you’ll go to prison, but it’s not fair. You throw it out the window and watch it shatter on the road. Under California law, you’re now a three-time felon facing a mandatory life sentence. That’s why the courts gave you suspended sentences on manslaughter charges and released you to the custody of your husband. You’re a good person and you do everything right. You turned yourself in after the first two… accidents. And as of this morning, you’ve had three miscarriages. Through three pregnancies, you didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, and didn’t touch coffee or chocolate or anything else with caffeine or any other possible miscarrigens. ![]() Your name is Nicole Palmer, and this is the world you wanted, one where every unborn child is safe, protected by the law from the moment he or she is conceived. He hops after you on one foot, still holding the shoe, shrinking in the rearview mirror as you speed out of the cul-de-sac. You’re already driving down the street when he dashes out the front door. “Can you get it for me?”Īs soon as he turns away, you go to the garage. “I think I left my ring in the bathroom,” you say, because you left it in the bathroom. It’s why you married him, and you liked that about him for a long time, even after you realized most of his answers don’t work for you. “We’ve just got to stick to the plan,” he says earnestly.īrandon has a plan, an answer, for everything. “Thirty weeks in the hospital - that’s almost like prison.” You grab your keys and purse from the dresser. Then if we have to check you into the hospital for the next thirty weeks–” “We’ll have the doctor fill out the Certificate of Conception, then call your parole officer. “Week nine,” he says, laughing as if it’s a game. He leans over for a kiss and you dodge him. You tuck in your blouse, yank open the door.īrandon stands there with a shoe in one hand and a big dumb grin on his square face. The bowl flushes automatically, but you refuse to look back. A shudder runs down your spine, like a finger dragged across a keyboard badly out of tune. No, you don’t: the weekly doctor visits are a condition of your parole, after the second pregnancy. Only the deep breathing techniques you learned in Lamaze class the first time you were pregnant ease your panic. For the past several days you’ve suffered from the too-familiar cramps, but you’ve been in denial, blaming the iffy paella valenciana at the restaurant two nights ago. You live in a world that requires the bravado of false cheer. “Sure thing,” you answer with saccharine cheer. ![]() For added verisimilitude you rattle the toilet paper roll. You sit in the bathroom, pants puddled at your ankles, and stare at the vase of orchids on the marble counter: the blossoms curl like purple teardrops.īrandon, your husband, raps on the door. A dark serendipity, perhaps, but it makes “Your Life Sentence” one of the most timely stories we’ve ever published here. Though I believe he started writing it before then, we received Charlie’s story not long after the announcement that the House and Senate of the State of Utah had passed a bill that would criminalise miscarriage. C C Finlay‘s “Your Life Sentence” is another type again, and maybe one of the most important and powerful – the sort that asks “what will happen if this carries on?”, but which asks it about something that’s – all too sadly – well within the boundaries of the possible. There are many different types of science fiction, from the classic Competent Men in their gleaming spaceships to the noir-tinged dystopic cities of cyberpunk. ![]()
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