(Lena)
The pain started about twenty minutes after I hung up with Diane.
It wasn't severe at first. Just a dull uncomfortable pressure on my right side, low down, the kind of thing you could almost talk yourself into ignoring if you were determined enough. I shifted on the couch and it eased slightly and I told myself it was nothing. Probably just the way I was sitting. Probably just my body adjusting to everything that was happening inside it.
I picked up my phone and put it down again.
The pressure came back.
Stronger this time.
I sat up properly and pressed my hand against my side and waited for it to pass the way the nausea always did, in waves that arrived and retreated and left you wondering if you'd imagined the worst of it.
It didn't pass.
I stood up slowly and walked to th
