by Kelly Creighton
Every tissue of womanhood they stole from me. From the ward I called John and asked him to collect me. I packed my hospital bag.
John said ‘I’ll be right there after I help Susan get the little kids to bed’. I wonder if he felt strange mentioning it to me when I had never been present for his bedtimes.
‘It’s a small world,’ John had said when he found me living close by.
‘I was fifteen. I wanted to keep you…’ I had watched John’s eyes flit to the photo of his eldest, not far from that age.
When I woke from my procedure Doctor Pritchard said, ‘Mrs Graham, why did you not tell us you had your womb removed?’ I was as mystified as he looked.
I’m waiting here now, making sense of those childless years with Ted. I felt so empty. I was.
John is here, now.
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Kelly Creighton lives in Co Down, she writes fiction, poetry and shopping lists; she has a head like a sieve.
The Pygmy Giant 