When I woke up it was morning, and Mike was already gone again.
9
The sign near the receptionist’s desk had promised WOMEN CARING FOR WOMEN, as if that was worth bragging about, and so far, so good.
Dr. Gretchen Liesel’s waiting room was like a giant womb, bathed in warm red tones and indirect light, without a harsh fluorescent bulb in sight. Somehow, I hadn’t expected Texas to be like this.
After filling out a little paperwork, my body nestled itself into one of six overstuffed chairs as a classical music station played faintly, the way I imagined the baby could hear music in his insulated cocoon. I dug into the Sunday Arts section of The New York Times, a treat, because I’d started reading it on Mike’s iPad since we moved, and it just wasn’t the same. I had taken exactly one bite from a chocolate chip granola bar from the loaded snack basket when a sweet-faced nurse named Anna called my name.
I obediently followed her into an exam room, outfitted with the same soft lighting, a couch, and custom oak cabinets that hid the cold, glistening tools that made every muscle in my body clench. Or maybe they used those awful disposable plastic ones here. Surely women caring for women knew that, for some reason, cheap, hard, disposable plastic hurt more than steel. Anna left the room, and I shed my clothes and pulled on the cuddly, high-thread-count, blue cotton gown folded on the exam table.
I lay back on it and thought about my sole reason for being here.
Paranoia.
Paranoia about an ache in my belly this morning that was either a sign that I was losing my baby or that I shouldn’t eat red Doritos every day.
Paranoia about Caroline’s ridiculous fortune-cookie secrets. About yesterday’s vile package on my doorstep and whether the missing Caroline could possibly be responsible. I wanted to believe that Dr. Liesel had the answers to all of these concerns, all of it covered by doctor-patient confidentiality.
When I called several hours ago, the receptionist heard my first sentence about pain in my lower abdomen and immediately plugged me in as a new patient at 4 p.m.
Two raps on the door. Dr. Liesel stepped inside, dressed in pale green scrubs.
“Hello, Emily.” She gave my shoulder a gentle pat before heading to the sink to wash her hands. The pat. It changed the entire dynamic of the doctor/patient relationship. Perfecting the patient pat should be a medical school graduation requirement.
“So what’s going on?” She dried her hands on a paper towel and rolled her stool over, unhooking the blood pressure cuff from the wall.
“It hurts all across here. Probably something I ate?” Hopeful.
“Don’t talk.” She pumped up the cuff.
The blood pressure machine hissed like an angry snake, the only sound in the room. I thought about Mike, who had no idea that I was here, or that something might be wrong. My worry was all I could carry this time. He was more afraid of losing me than of losing another child he didn’t know.
But I knew this child. He had wrapped his little fingers tightly around my soul. So had all the ones before him.
I breathed deeply and tried to focus on the cool and gentle fingers pressing on my wrist, feeling my pulse.
“150 over 90.” Dr. Liesel ripped off the Velcro cuff. “Not ideal. Your pulse is a little fast. When did you last see Dr. Herrera?”
Why was this always a surprise to a doctor? That pulses race faster and blood pounds in the presence of someone who could rock your world with a few words of irrefutable science?
“Several days ago. Everything checked out fine.”
“Lie back and let’s untie your gown.” She flipped a switch on a screen above my head, pulled out an ultrasound wand, and squirted warm jelly on my stomach.
Searching, searching, searching for that elusive heartbeat. I squeezed my eyes shut, and wondered where women caring for women heated up the goo.
I tried not to imagine a tiny, curled-up form perfectly still on the screen above my head. Too still. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I heard horses galloping through a stream and almost choked on air. My baby, beating away.
“From what I can see so far, your baby looks and sounds perfect.” She gently wiped the jelly off with a soft washcloth.
“Lie back for a second.” Careful hands massaged my stomach. From my angle, it appeared to be protruding about two more inches than yesterday. She pressed a stethoscope to my belly before pulling it out of her ears and adjusting the exam table into a sitting position. “It’s noisy in there. Maybe eat some plain yogurt. Do you know the sex?”
“Yes.” Overflowing with gratefulness, indebted, as everyone is to a doctor who delivers good news, as if they’re somehow responsible for it. “A boy.”
“Relax, OK? You’ve made it well past the first trimester this time. I see here in your paperwork faxed over from Dr. Herrera that you’ve had a number of miscarriages. The percentages are with you at this point.” She paused, frowning at my paperwork. “Is this right? A glass of wine a day?”
“More like every other day.”
“Cut back. One a week.”
“OK.” Timid. With doctors, always timid, whether they were assholes or angels, ones who patted my shoulder or ones who coldly told me that my future adorable first-grader who cut out construction paper butterflies was now a dead fetus that needed to be harvested by a machine.
“Do you take someone… like me? High risk?” The words rushed out unexpectedly.
She studied my face. “You want me to follow this pregnancy?”
“I think so.”
“My first delivery was twin calves in my uncle’s barn in Massachusetts. Sticking my arms up that poor cow at age sixteen prepared me for just about anything. I’m not worried if you aren’t. Still, Dr. Herrera is an excellent doctor and her facilities are a little more impressive. So what will it be?” She glanced up for confirmation, and I nodded.
You. I don’t know why I trust you, but I do.
She started pecking with two fingers into a small laptop on the counter. “I could do a full exam, but I don’t like to bother the baby unless it’s absolutely necessary. My nurse will set up a schedule of appointments. Call me anytime you’re worried. No big deal.”
Eat some yogurt. No exam. No big deal.
“Any other questions?”
I hesitated. Things were going so well.
“Do you have any idea where Caroline could be?”
“No. Unfortunately, I don’t.” Clipped.
She stood up, patted my shoulder in exactly the same spot, and headed for the door. “You can get dressed.”
“Wait. Please.” I sucked in a breath. “Caroline invited me over with some other women. We passed around… a box.”
Her hand stilled on the doorknob.
“And yesterday someone left a pol-a piece of paper on my doorstep. I need to know if Caroline’s behind it. It’s about something that happened to me a long time ago.” My voice began to plead. “You warned me. I need to know why.”
She turned to press the intercom button on the wall. “Anna, I’m going to take a few minutes with Emily in my office. Call Mrs. Lindstrom on her cell and check on her, will you? She’s in labor in her car in the emergency room parking lot. She’s hoping she can make it till midnight. If the baby has other ideas, let me know.”
She turned back to me, smiling, as if there were no undercurrents, no torture instruments behind the cabinets, no fears about a baby who could die regardless of statistics that said he shouldn’t. No ridiculous thoughts of blackmail and no missing Caroline.
“Mrs. Lindstrom’s insurance company pays for only two days, and the day starts whenever you show up. But she likes to get her full forty-eight hours. This is baby number six. She could probably deliver it herself.”
I wondered what it would be like to be so blasé about a pregnancy that I’d sit in a parking lot in full-blown labor, playing a game of chicken with the insurance company.