Dear Diary,

‘I can’t be pregnant. No way that is humanly possible.’

Yes, Diary, those words are coming from Jenny, my colleague from the hospital, whom I had housed for a while after the last rains damaged her house. Jenny is a doctor. She is almost 30 years old, and all her ‘plumbing’ works as expected.

The reason she is denying being with child is that she is a religious nut. If you know me well, you know I have nothing against religion. But same as we have levels of cancer and such, there are levels to which people can ascribe to anything.

Being religious is one thing; insisting that we first break bread like Jesus before every meal is a whole new playing field. Jenny even prays with her patients. Nothing wrong about that until one of those patients happens to be agnostic, then the complaints start piling in.

“You fainted, Jenny,” I tell her outside my house, where movers are busy loading her stuff into a van. “There are other symptoms, too. Frequent urination, swollen breasts…”

“Stop it!” she commands me. “Unless it was the second case of immaculate conception ever, then I suggest that I seek a second opinion.’”

“Of course. That is certainly your prerogative.”

She gives me a look that says she’s on to me. That she knows how much I’d love to gloat if indeed my diagnosis happened to be true. “You’d want me to be pregnant, wouldn’t you?”

“Why would I want that? The baby — if there is one, that is — is certainly not mine. So, why would I be interested?”

“Because you want to judge me.”

I think it’s that word ‘judge’ that ticks me off. Jenny has done nothing but judge me ever since she came to live with me. I’ve been told I’ll go to hell owing to my promiscuity. Which, I have to say, is not as much as she insinuated. My sexual conquests are way lower than the number of dates I go on. I remind Jenny all this and more.

“If anything,” I add, “you seem to be more successful than I am.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You haven’t seen anyone come here claiming to have my baby, have you? And I’m open about my… leisure activities. You, on the other hand, hide behind your cross. You’re here persecuting me for being a serial dater and preaching abstinence until marriage, while you’re clearly indulging in the same forbidden fruit.”

She’d collapsed on the driveway. Now she stands up, reels a little then steadies herself. “Don’t touch me,” she says when I offer help. “I was prepared to thank you for being a good host all this time, but I didn’t expect you to turn into this… this…”

“This what, Jenny?”

“You’re right, you know.” She nods, looks me straight in the eye.

“I am?”

“I fainted, I’ve been urinating frequently and parts of my body are swollen. Other parts too, not just my breasts. I don’t feel well. I just haven’t gathered the courage to get the right tests. Once those come in, I’ll make you eat your words.”

I don’t think I’ve ever felt as guilty as I do right now. Here I am accusing Jenny of being pregnant just so I can feel better about myself. What if she has something else entirely? What then?

I am beginning to apologise when Carol, Jenny’s choir friend who’s here to help her move, picks up Jenny’s purse off the ground where it had fallen and spilt its contents.

“Jenny,” she says, staring at a pregnancy test. “This has two solid lines. That means you’re pregnant, right?”