Bloom (Part 3)

When I woke upon my first morning at the Hare lodging house, I remembered that a dead body had been removed from the room next to mine just a few hours before. I also remembered that I was now waking up a “man” and that if anyone had entered my room while I slept and seen the undergarments I was in, they’d be in for quite a shock. I needed to be more cautious going forward.

The sun had risen but the space remained dim with just one small, filthy window on the other side of the room. I lit the candle at my bedside, sat up, and noticed a scent of bacon in the air. The contents of my stomach churned at the smell, a smell that would normally be a very pleasant one. But the baby growing inside me did not like bacon.

I leapt from my bed to the chamber pot at the corner of the room and retched into it, then sat on the cold floor for a moment to be sure I was done. I knew that this needed to be taken care of. I could easily hide vomiting each morning, but a growing belly I could not.

I had made the decision days earlier that I was not going to keep the child. Not only because I knew that I would no longer be able to hide as Bloom, but because I did not want the child of a liar and a cheat. And I’m sure the child did not want a mother who murdered its father.

I searched my suitcase for the pennyroyal tablets that I had stolen from the apothecary in Paris. I remembered when I was younger that my father prescribed them to women who were in my same condition and wanted out of it. I poured myself a glass of water, swallowed down six of the pennyroyal tablets, then lie back down on the bed.

Another life lost at my hand.