That my body is for me, is mine, that my body does not have to please others, has been a hard thing to understand. It is a thing I’ve been working on for a long time. My piercings and tattoos have helped. They are little flags I use to settle the land of my body. To claim it for myself. Mine, I say. I do with you what I please. Mine, and I don’t care what someone else thinks of this. Someone who sees me tomorrow. Some imaginary someone someday. This has nothing to do with them. I plant a flag. Another. This is mine.

After the insemination, she tells Brynn to lie still for about ten minutes. Then she asks Brynn if she wants to keep the vial.

“Yes?” Brynn says.

“I forgot to keep all my kids’ stuff,” the nurse says, “and now they ask where it is.” She leaves.

“No one asked me that the last times,” Brynn says, still lying on the table. “About the vial.”

“You could turn it into a Christmas ornament,” I say. “Hang it on the tree every year and reminisce.”

Brynn laughs. “Or I could keep it in a drawer somewhere and take it out when they want to do anything and say, ‘Why don’t you ask your father about that?’ ”

I am wheezing I am laughing so hard.