‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession, and here are my faux pas:
I had sex with a man I mistook for my fiancé. I know that sounds unbelievable. I mean, how could anyone make such a lamebrain mistake? But, Father, as God is my witness, I really and truly believed this man was my betrothed. If only you could have seen him, compared the two in your mind, I’m absolutely positive you couldn’t have told them apart either. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself for the past six days. Identical twins could not resemble each other more. Problem is my future husband, as far as I know or he knows, has no such twin. So what am I supposed to tell him? “Darling, I just had a roll in the hay with your mirror image?” I mean honestly, Father, who but an utter chump would swallow such a cock-and-bull tale? No offence. I mean, you're required to believe me; nobody in her right mind lies to a priest. But think of how farfetched that will sound to the father of my unborn child. Oh; just to review: I’m two months pregnant; my lover and I are engaged; sex out of wedlock is wrong—I’ve confessed and been forgiven for that already; and yes I’m sorry for doing it again, but that’s not the issue. I mean it is, except the act itself is far less important than who I did it with. Besides which, practically speaking, we didn’t have intercourse. Petting was all. Well, ultra-heavy petting, but I never touched his prick—pardon my language. And the guy, which really galls me, never let on. Can you imagine? Allowing a girl to gush all over you when it isn’t even you she’s glad to see? Is that low, or is that low? I hope the bastard’s Catholic and has to tell his own goddamn priest! Ouch; sorry. Add that to my list, will you? Anyway, you can see the spot I’m in. He, my fiancé, is out of the country at the moment, looking after his dad, who’s just gone off the deep end, apparently, but that’s another story. Should I mum’s-the-word or admit what I’ve done when he gets back? I’ve come for Absolution, true, but I sure could use some input. Tell me, Father, in my shoes, what do you think you'd do?'

           Clad in another easy-access outfit, this one more of a coverall, zippers on either side (from inseam sleeves to armpits to outer seam pant-leg cuffs continuous—the getting-in more problematic than the getting-out), Joanna, lighter in spirit if heavier in midriff, worries about her future. First and foremost, what lies ahead for her illegitimate child? Her unscreened child—electing, as she has, thus far, to disregard convention: planning to marry after giving birth, abjuring prenatal tests, both at odds and unswervingly consistent with the dictates of her Faith, the situation complicated further by revelations from New Zealand where her bona-fide-intended with her father-in-law-to-be appear involved in some unlawful, hideous enterprise; generating transplant parts from viable individuals, or from subjects nearly viable but human indisputably, has been banned, and though examples of such monstrous ventures have come to light on occasion the universal view is that all are sinful (in ways that make her own moral lapses well-nigh innocuous).

*

            Home now, framed by a triptych of her vanity’s full-length mirrors, Joanna moulds her palms to the makings of a bulge, her convex belly noticeably rounder than usual thus hypothetically pulsing with the foetal life inside, images Rockefeller broadcast on his camcorder cell causing expectant-mother cringes. Much as one might worry about exposure to infection (some insidious re-emergence of HIV, for example), Joanna's worst apprehensions concern the health of her unborn child. Blessed or corrupted by genes already mixed? Are hers less dubious than his given the fact of Fell's recent disclosure about 'Rem's' mental illness? If Fell indeed is ‘a chip off his old man's block’, she, as the 'chip's' future bride had better pray for a baby girl; Joanna's world in any case, once right-side up, has turned upside down.