In the pre-dawn silence, before the sun wrests the veils of frost from our windows, I hear someone running down the hall—small, naked feet sprinting toward my bed. I’m only half awake, half expectant, but when I feel the mattress dip under the pressure of new weight and a warm body pressed against my back, I know it’s my son and I know he’s had another bad dream. Maybe it’s Captain Hook again or Shredder, the knife-toting villain from the Ninja Turtles.

On a bus across the city, university to main station, sometime in late June, I spent five endless minutes alternating between three thoughts.

One. Why do I feel like crying?

Two. I am going to throw up.

I’m standing with One hundred people, mostly women, on the Pawcatuck Bridge in Westerly, RI, holding clever signs and cheering when drivers honk their horns in pro-choice solidarity. I can’t believe I’m still doing this after fifty years.