“I have a best friend. She’s been staying with me.”
Another scribbled note. Another loaded silence. “Have you been experiencing any unusual stress lately?”
I almost laugh right in his face.Where would I even begin? Say, Doctor, have you ever heard of the Bratva…?
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I say instead.
If he guesses that I’m not being entirely forthcoming, he shows no sign of it. Instead, Dr. Meredith makes a disgruntled noise and stands. “Let’s take a look at the fetus, then, shall we?”
The ultrasound gel is predictably freezing, but it’s better than the elephant-penis-sized transvaginal probe that accompanied my first appointment. Still, I flinch when it hits my skin, and Dr. Meredith doesn’t apologize or warn me or do any of the small, human things that would make this feel less awful. He’s not especially gentle with the wand, either. Nor does he bother explaining what any of hishmmsandhuhhsmean as he steers it around the globe of my belly. Is the baby in breech? Am I birthing a two-headed alien? Nobody knows.
“There’s the heartbeat,” he announces dryly.
The familiar whooshing fills the room. It’s every bit as strong as last time. That’s good, at least.
“Growth is on track. No obvious concerns.”
He rattles off more numbers that mean very little to me. Crown-to-rump length, nuchal translucency, other phrases of medical gibberish. Should I be taking notes? Am I already failing at motherhood?
“Would you like a printout?”
“Yes,” I mumble. “Please.”
“Here are the ultrasound photos. I’ll return momentarily with your paperwork.” The door clicks shut behind Dr. Meredith, leaving me alone with the ultrasound photos and the hum of the merciless air conditioning unit. I sit on the examination table in my paper gown like a kid in detention, the material crinkling every time I move. Goosebumps prickle up my bare legs.
Beyond the door, the clinic carries on without me. Phones ring. Distant conversations blur into white noise. Nurses’ shoes squeak against linoleum like mice scurrying through walls.
As I listen, something rises in my chest that I can’t quite name. Not regret, exactly, but definitely something adjacent to it. Something that lives in the same neighborhood and borrows sugar from regret on weekends.
Maybe it’s the ache of experiencing this moment alone when it should have been shared.
I think about the too-nice woman in the waiting room, the one whose husband cried into his hard hat. I wonder whether Bastian would cry if I let him close enough to see our baby enter this world. And then I wonder what it would do to me to see him go through that.
I squint against the tears and turn my face away, because they hurt, they hurt so fucking badly.
Ichose this.Ipushed him away.Igot exactly whatIasked for.
So why does it feel like losing?
The door opens again. I assume it’s Dr. Meredith returning with the printout, probably to deliver it with all the cheery warmth of a meter maid dishing out parking tickets.
But the footsteps sound wrong. Theythunkin a way I don’t like. There’s a weight to them that doesn’t belong in a place full of expectant mothers and cheerful nurses.
My head snaps up. My body turns to stone on the exam table.
Something is off. Something is very, very off.
“Hello?” I call out.
The footsteps stop.
Then I hear the quiet click of the lock engaging.
My pulse spikes so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my temples, in the tips of my fingers wrapped around my cane. Adrenaline floods my system.
I open my mouth to ask who’s there, but my throat has gone dry. The words catch somewhere between my chest and my tongue, useless and stuck.
The smell hits me then. Marlboro Reds and sweat and cheap cologne, something synthetic and gross, a gas station throwaway with, like, a bellowing gorilla on the bottle. It’s not Dr. Meredith’s dry, medicinal antiseptic, and it’s definitely not Bastian’s wintergreen and musk.
