Summary

In Chapter 37, Anna has been at 17 Swann Street for a week. When the narrator met with her doctor, she asked about her missed periods. The doctor told her that fertility was her least pressing medical complication to address. Later on, Anna attends a Catholic mass as an excuse to leave the treatment facility. In Chapter 38, Anna “clung to [the] fantasy [that she could still carry a child] so desperately that she took a pregnancy test every month (175). She and Matthias had been trying for a baby before she lost her menstrual cycle and she pretended that her eating disorder was not compromising her fertility.

Anna and Sarah, a fellow patient, talk after they attend church, in Chapter 39. The other woman explains that she has a child, named Charlie, and her ex took him when her illness escalated. Sarah wants to recover so...