After an eternity, Dr. Anna leaned out the glass door and called Lily’s name. She led Lily into an office and drew the curtain, leaving her with the inevitable paper gown. Dr. Anna was Dr. Davis’s wife, a woman well into her fifties. She was one of the few women doctors Lily had ever met. Lily had mostly been too young to understand the Frewell Laws; President Frewell’s term in office had begun when Lily was eight and ended when she was sixteen. But his laws had left their legacy, and medical schools rarely admitted women anymore. Lily, who could no more have let a strange man look between her legs than she could have gone outside naked, was grateful that there was a Dr. Anna at all, but Dr. Anna had the constantly irritated face of the old-time schoolmarm, and she always seemed annoyed at Lily for being there, for taking her away from something more important. She asked Lily the routine questions, making notes on her clipboard, while Lily worked at tucking the paper gown more tightly around her, trying to cover as much skin as possible.
“Do you need more pills?”
“Please.”
“A whole year’s worth?”
“Yes.”
“How will you pay?”
Lily dug inside her purse and produced two thousand dollars in cash. Greg had given it to her for shopping last weekend, and Lily had poked the money through a hole in the lining of her purse, then lied and said she’d bought herself a pair of shoes. The hole in her purse had come in handy several times in the past year, when Greg had taken to making unscheduled inspections of her things. She had no idea what he was looking for; when he found nothing, he would give Lily an odd, cheated look, the look of the store clerk who had failed to catch someone shoplifting. The inspections were unsettling, but that look worried Lily even more.
Dr. Anna took the cash and slipped it into her pocket, and then they went on to the messy, unpleasant business of the exam itself, which Lily endured by gritting her teeth, staring at the cheap plaster tiles on the ceiling, and thinking of the nursery. She and Greg had no children, but Lily had furnished the nursery just after their marriage, back when things were different. The nursery was the only place in their house that belonged entirely to Lily, where she could really be alone. Greg needed people around him, needed someone to respond to him. Nowhere in the house was safe; he might come barging into any room at any time without knocking, seeking attention. But he never came into the nursery.
When Dr. Anna had sent out all of the various tools and swabs, she told Lily, “The receptionist will tell you your test results, and she’ll have your pills together. Just give her your name.”
“Thank you.”
Dr. Anna went for the door, but paused just before opening it and turned around, her schoolteacher’s face set in its default expression of pinched disapproval. “You know, it won’t ever get better on its own.”
“What won’t?”
“Him.” Dr. Anna’s eyes dropped to the ring on Lily’s finger. “Your husband.”
Lily clutched the hem of the paper gown more tightly between her fingers. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do. I see over five hundred women a month in here. The bruises don’t lie.”
“I don’t–”
“Plus,” Dr. Anna continued, cutting Lily off, “you’re clearly a wealthy woman. There’s no reason you can’t get contraception closer to home. With black-market prices what they are these days, you could even get a dealer to deliver pills to your house. Unless, of course, you’re afraid your husband will find out.”
Lily shook her head, not wanting to hear any of this. Sometimes she thought that everything was almost fine, so long as it wasn’t brought out into the open.
“Your husband doesn’t own you.”
Lily looked up, suddenly furious, because Dr. Anna didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. That was all marriage meant: ownership. Lily had sold herself for someone to take care of her, to pay the bills and tell her what to do. Certainly there had been some buyer’s remorse along the way, but that was the proverbial pig in a poke, as Lily’s mother would have said. Mom and Dad hadn’t wanted her to marry Greg, but Lily had been so sure of what was best. Thinking of her parents, Lily felt a sudden, hopeless longing for her old room back at their house in Pennsylvania, for the twin bed and oak desk. The furniture had been plain, nowhere near as nice as the things Lily owned now. But her room had been her own. Even her parents didn’t come in without knocking first.
Lily’s eyes had watered; she wiped a quick hand across them, smearing her makeup. “You don’t know anything about it.”
Dr. Anna gave a mirthless chuckle. “This dynamic never changes, Mrs. Mayhew. Believe me, I know.”
“He’s only done it a few times,” Lily mumbled, knowing even as she spoke that it was a mistake to answer. Had she ever resented Dr. Anna’s clinical, impersonal manner? She longed to have it back now. “He’s been under a lot of pressure at work this year.”
“Your husband’s a powerful man?”
“Yes,” Lily replied automatically. It was always the first thing that popped into her head about Greg: that he was a powerful man. He worked for the Department of Defense, acting as a civilian liaison between the military men and the weapons contractors. His division oversaw supply for all of the military bases on the East Coast. He was six foot two and had played football in college. He had met the president. There was nowhere that Lily could escape to.
“Even so, there are places you can go, you know. Places you can hide.”
Lily shook her head, but there was no way to explain to Dr. Anna. Women did run sometimes, even in New Canaan; last year, Cath Alcott had just taken off one night, packed her three kids into the family Mercedes and disappeared. Security had found the car, abandoned in Massachusetts, but so far as Lily knew, they never found Cath. John Alcott, a big, quiet man who had always made Lily feel slightly uneasy, had hired a private firm to find his wife, but it hadn’t helped. They couldn’t even trace her tag. Cath had done the impossible: she had taken her children and gotten away clean.
But Lily would never be able to disappear, even without children in tow. Where would she live? How would she eat? All of the money was in Greg’s name; the big banks wouldn’t open individual accounts for married women anymore. Even if Lily had known people who could create a new identity for her–she didn’t–she had no skills. She had graduated college with English credentials. No one would hire her, not even to clean houses. Lily closed her eyes and saw the homeless of Manhattan in their shapeless garbage bags, living in clusters beneath the roadways, fighting for scraps. Even if she made it so far, she wouldn’t last a day in that world.
“Well, think it over,” Dr. Anna told her, face severe again. “It’s never too late.”
Reaching into her pocket, she produced a card and, with a questioning glance at Lily, tucked it into Lily’s purse where it sat on the chair. Then she slipped out, closing the door behind her.