The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 by Karen Joy Fowler Page B

single-mom futon, and with my eyedropper dribble one, two, three purple drops on her lips, just enough to abort the baby he put inside her. In her belly, the fetus would clutch and clench and double up dead.
    Megumi and my husband do not approach the bed. They move instead toward the armoire, beside which is a rolling rack of all the vintage dresses I could no longer wear once I lost my bustline. I moved them to the rack, but couldn’t bear to roll them out of the room.
    Megumi runs her fingers along these dresses.
    She pauses only to eye a stack of my training bras on the dresser.
    Interesting fact: While you can get used to being titless, the naked feeling of not wearing a bra is harder to shake. You just become accustomed to the hug of one. I recommend the A-cup bras from Target’s teen section. Mine are decorated with multicolor peace signs.
    Megumi selects a dress from the rack and studies it—it’s an earthy pink Hepburn, with a boat neck, white trim, and pleated petticoat. At the Florida university where I met my husband, I was in his presence three different times before he finally noticed me. I was wearing that dress when he did. I wonder if he remembers it.
    Megumi holds the dress to her body, studying herself in the mirror. Then she turns to my husband, draping the dress against her figure for his approval.
    Interesting fact: The kanji for “figure” is a combination of the elements “next” and “woman.”
    I study my own figure in the mirror.
    Interesting fact: The loss of breasts doesn’t flatten your chest—it leaves you concave and hollowed-looking. And something about the surgery pooches your tummy. My surgeon warned me about this. But who could picture it? Who would voluntarily conjure themselves that way?
    Megumi waits, my dress held against her. Then my husband reaches out. He has a faraway look in his eyes. With his fingertips, he tugs here and tapers there, adjusting the fall of fabric to the shape of her body. Finally, he nods. She accepts the dress, folding it in her arms.
    I do not dagger her. I stand there and do nothing.
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    Interesting fact: My first novel no one would publish was about Scottsdale trophy wives who form a vigilante group to patrol their gated community. It contains, among other things, a bobcat killing, a night-golfing tragedy, the illegal use of a golf-ball-collecting machine, and a sex scene involving a man and a woman wearing backpack-mounted soda pistols. It was called
The Beige Berets.
    Interesting fact: My second novel no one would publish concerns two young girls who have rare powers of perception. One can read auras while the other sees ghosts. To work the ghost angle, I had their father live in Charles Manson’s old apartment. To make the girls more vulnerable, I decided to kill off their mother, so I gave her cancer. To ratchet up the tension, I had a sexual predator named Mister Roses live next door. My husband came up with the name. In fact, my husband became quite enamored with this character. He was really helpful in developing Mister Roses’s backstory and generating his dialogue. Then my husband stole this character and wrote a story from Mister Roses’s perspective called “Dark Meadow.” I can’t even say the name of this novel without getting angry.
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    My husband does not return to the novel he was working on before my cancer. After the kids are asleep, he instead calls up the website Bigboobsalert. He regards this on slideshow mode, so ladies with monstrous chests appear and fade, one into the next. My husband has his hand lotion ready, but he doesn’t masturbate. He stares at a place just past the computer screen. I contemplate these women. I can only see in their saucerous nipples and pendulous breasts the superpower of motherhood. Instead of offering come-hither looks to lonely men, these women should be feeding hungry babies, calling on foundling wards and nursing the legion