by Claire Adams
I had moved here to Chapin right after Declan’s first birthday, about a two-hour drive from the coastal town I’d grown up in, where my parents still lived. How had I picked Chapin? I’d gotten a call from one of my former professors at Boston University, and she told me a friend of hers who worked at a clinic in rural Maine was going to be moving to California soon and was actively looking to hire a replacement, as opposed to shutting the clinic. When I had first started my residency, I’d had these grand ideas in my head, a busy urban office, sleek décor, half a dozen colleagues, maybe some sort of specialized medicine. But then, you know, life happened, and I decided to take a chance and move to Chapin.
It was going better than I expected; I liked working in a small-town. I liked getting to know the people and being able to spend more than five minutes with them. What I hadn’t been expecting was Ben to move, too, but he did, some six months later, saying that he wanted a change of scenery, even though all he was really trading was the ocean of eastern Maine for the mountains in the western foothills.
Whatever his motives were, I was grateful he had done so. I had some other parent acquaintances, but no real friends. There were also very few other dads at the playground; most often it would be me, pushing Declan in the swing or chasing him down the plastic slide, with a gaggle of mothers all sitting together, gossiping at a picnic table, while their children played. The teachers at Declan’s school were always kind, but again, I was one of very few guys who was doing the daily drop-off/pick-up duty.
It wasn’t at all the way I thought things were going to have worked out, but this was the reality now, and there was nothing I could do to change that. It was easy to think back to mistakes that had been made and how things could have been done differently, but what was the point? There was no way to take certain things back, and you just had to deal with the choices you had made.
Chapter Three
Allie
My dentist appointment had been relatively uneventful, though a little painful. No cavities, but I did have a few sensitive spots on my bottom molars. I was more anxious about going to the doctor’s and hopefully getting something that was going to clear up what I hoped was just a run-of-the-mill UTI. It’s not like it would be an STD or anything, seeing as I hadn’t had sex with anyone, though that hadn’t stopped me from Googling “STD from public restroom?”
The receptionist, who wasn’t much older than I was, gave me a clipboard with some paperwork to fill out.
“I don’t have my insurance card yet,” I said. “I just started my new job, and I haven’t received my card in the mail. I did talk to them on the phone, though, and they gave me the number.”
“Great,” she said. “That’ll be fine. And just bring your card with you the next time you come into the office. You can have a seat, and they’ll call you back when they’re ready.”
I had just started to read a magazine when a different woman called my name. If this had been a city office, I would have been sitting here waiting for at least 15 minutes, probably closer to half an hour. I slid the magazine back in the rack and stood up.
“Hi there, Allison,” the nurse said. “My name’s Kathy. Why don’t you follow me.” I followed her through a door that led out of the waiting room and into a hallway; to the left was the receptionist’s office, and to the right were the exam rooms. We went into room two, and Kathy had me put my stuff down and sit on one of the chairs.
“I’m just going to take your blood pressure,” she said. “You’ll be meeting with Dr. Becker.” She secured the blood pressure cuff around my upper arm. “If you want me to stay in the room while he does the exam, I can.”
“That’s okay,” I said. While it was nice of her to offer, the less people in the room when my feet were up in the stirrups, the better. The cuff squeezed my arm tighter and tighter.
Finally, right when it felt like it was about to snap my arm in half, the pressure released, and the nurse wrote something down on my chart.
“It’s 118 over 70,” she said. “Looks good. I just need to take your temperature, then you can change into that gown and the doctor will be right in to see you. And if you change your mind about there being a third person in here, don’t be afraid to speak up.”
I opened my mouth, and she placed the thermometer under my tongue. Once she was done, she smiled and then stepped out of the room so I could get changed.
I changed into the paper dressing gown, feeling somewhat ridiculous, as anyone would wearing something as silly as this. I left my socks on, but folded the rest of my clothes into a neat pile and placed them on the chair. I shimmied back up onto the exam table, the paper crinkling underneath me. I sat there and looked around at the off-white walls, the glossy poster with graphics showing the female menstrual cycle, and then another showing a fetus progressing through the months of pregnancy. A third poster proclaimed in big rainbow font how important it was to eat fruits and vegetables in all colors. The strawberries looked good, and I made a mental note to pick some up at the farmers’ market I was hoping to go to after my appointment.
There was a gentle tap at the door.
I cleared my throat. “Come in,” I said.
The door opened, and my new next door neighbor walked in, wearing a button-down shirt and a pair of smooth khaki pants. He had a stethoscope hung sideways around his neck. I couldn’t tell if he was surprised to see me or not—his expression didn’t really change—but I was unable to keep the shock off of my own face.
Never mind the fact that I was sitting here in a fucking paper gown.
“Oh!” I said. “I... um... I didn’t realize that you were the doctor here. I mean, I know you said that you were a doctor, but I didn’t know that it would be here because if I did I probably would have—”
I stopped talking because I knew how foolish I sounded. It occurred to me suddenly what would be happening in a few minutes, what he was going to do, and I felt my face flush.
“Allison O’Keefe,” he said. He smiled. “But you’d rather go by Allie, right?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“I didn’t realize it would be you, either, and I can certainly understand if you’d rather see someone else. However, I can also assure you that I will be completely professional about this and am happy to do your exam today if you decide that’s what you’d like to do.”
I didn’t know what to do. I truly had no idea—if I said I wanted to see someone else, that meant I cared what he thought, which was ridiculous because I didn’t even know him. I didn’t want him to think that I was that sort of girl who would run away from an appointment like this just because the person doing it happened to be good-looking. And also, it was still really burning when I went to the bathroom, and I wanted to get a prescription if that was the only way to remedy the situation.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“Are you sure? Do you want Kathy to come back in?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. What I wanted now was to get this over with as soon as possible.
“Okay, then. Why don’t we do the exam part first, and then if there’s anything you want to talk to me about after, you can. When you’re ready, you can lie back and then scoot your bum close to the edge of the table and put your feet up in the stirrups.”
He went over to the counter and pulled on a pair of gloves. He also turned the faucet on.
I felt almost disembodied, like my mind was not quite tethered to my physical body, which was about to undergo an exam at the hands of Dr. Cole Becker, neighbor of yours truly. This was the only way that I could do this, though. I closed my eyes.
I heard the water turn off, and I was vaguely aware of him settling down on a rolling stool, positioned between my legs. My face burned. Was this actually happening?
“I ran the speculum under warm water, so it shouldn’t be too cold,” he said. “I’m going to put my hand here—” I felt his warm palm on my left inner thigh, “and then you’re going to feel the speculum go in—”
The metal was lukewarm against my skin, and the lubricant he must’ve put on speculum was cool and slippery. “Okay, there we go. It’s in.”
I wished he would stop narrating; I didn’t need to know every detail. In fact, if he stopped talking about it, I could allow myself to pretend that I was somewhere else completely.
“I’m going to just take a sample now,” he said, “and then we’ll be all done with this part of it. How are you doing?”
“Just fine!” I said, my voice a little too bright.
I hummed a song in my head and felt a strange poking sensation inside of me. “All set,” he said. “And now I’m going to take the speculum out. There we go. You can take your feet out of the stirrups and slide back, but stay lying down.”
“Oh,” I said, as I pulled my legs out. “We’re not done yet?”
“I just need to do a breast exam, and then we’ll be done and you can get dressed.”
Great, the humiliations continued. “Just put your arm above your head, good, just like that.” As I lifted my arm, the stupid paper dressing gown fell open, and there I was, completely exposed, though feeling bashful about that was ridiculous considering he’d just been poking around in my vagina.
I stared at a spot on the ceiling while he kneaded his fingers into one breast, then the other. Both times, my nipples got hard, even though the room was fairly warm. I hoped that he didn’t notice, or if he did, that it was a normal sort of occurrence. If I hadn’t been so mortified by the entire scenario, I might have been able to acknowledge the fact that the whole thing was a bit arousing.
And then finally, mercifully, it was over. He closed the gown over me, and I sat up, clasping it around me.
“So do you have any concerns or anything you’d like to talk about?” he asked.
“Um... it kind of burns when I go to the bathroom.”
“How long has that been going on for?”
“A little while now.”
“Any other symptoms?”
I tried to remember. “I don’t think so.”
“Do you feel like you need to urinate more than normal?”
“Um... no, I wouldn’t say so.”
“Any pain or feelings of discomfort in your back or lower abdomen?”
“No.”
“No fever or chills?”
“No, none of that.”
He nodded. “You left a urine sample already, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll order a culture test on that and should have the results back in the next day or so. If it comes back positive, I’ll write you a script for some antibiotics and that should clear it up. But of course, give us a call if your symptoms noticeably worsen in the meantime.”
“I will,” I said. “Thanks.”
He smiled. “You settling in okay?”
“Yeah, things are pretty good.”
“Happy to hear it. Listen, I know what it can be like, moving to a new place and all and not knowing anyone. So don’t be afraid to stop by or give me a call or text or something if you need anything. Here, let me write my cell phone down for you.” And he took one of his business cards and scribbled a number on the back of it before handing it to me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You have a good one.”
He smiled at me once more and then left, and I let out a sigh, feeling both relieved and incredibly embarrassed that this situation had happened in the first place.
I ripped the paper gown off and got back into my own clothes as quickly as possible. There was a slickness between my legs; I hadn’t wiped the lube from the speculum off. I grabbed a handful of tissue from a box on the counter and stuck my hand down my pants, dabbing in my underwear. Good enough. I exited the room, hoping I wouldn’t see Cole.
But of course he was there in the front office, looking at something on the receptionist’s computer screen. I stood there for a second, and as I did, I watched the way the receptionist leaned toward him, gazing up at him with those puppy dog eyes. I felt a flare of possessiveness, which was completely silly.
“Am I all set?” I finally said.
They both looked over, Cole with a smile and the receptionist with an expression of annoyance.
“You are,” he said. “We’ll be in touch in the next day or two once we get the results back, okay?”
“Sounds good,” I said, and I hurried out the door, glad to be out of there as quickly as possible.
When I got in my car, I just sat there for a minute. Had that really just happened? Did I just go spread my legs for my new next door neighbor because he had somehow ended up being the one to give me my annual exam? I shut my eyes and tried to scrub the whole thing from my memory. When I reopened them, though, the door to the office was opening, and Cole was stepping out.
“Shit,” I said, and I went to start the car but realized the key wasn’t in the ignition. I reached over to the passenger seat for my purse, only to realize that it wasn’t there. No, it was in Cole’s hands, because I must have left it behind in the exam room, because I’d been so eager to get out of there.
I opened the door and stepped out of the car, feeling myself blushing furiously.
“Probably not going to get too far without this,” he said, holding the purse out.
“No, probably not. Thanks.”
His fingertips brushed mine as I took the purse from him, those same fingertips that had just been taking a sample from inside of me and feeling my breasts for any abnormal lumps.
“Um, okay, bye,” I said as I dug my keys out of the bottom of my purse and got back into my car. I drove out of there as fast as I could.
Chapter Four
Cole
HIPAA privacy laws prevented me from mentioning anything to Ben about my encounter at the office the other day with Allie, but that didn’t stop me from thinking about it. Now, I found myself glancing over toward her house every once in a while, wondering what she was up to, if her car was parked in the driveway. I normally wasn’t the one to make the calls back to patients (Kathy or Danielle handled that), but when the results of Allie’s urine culture had come back in, I called her up to tell her she had a UTI and I’d need to write her a script for an antibiotic.
One of the playground moms had dropped off a loaf of orange poppy seed bread that we hadn’t cut into yet. I grabbed the plastic-wrapped loaf.
“Come on, bud,” I said to Declan.
“Where are we going?” he asked as he jumped up, abandoning his pile of Duplo LEGOs.
“We’re going to go next door.”
“To see Miss Allie?”
“We’re going to give her this as a welcome present.”
He tilted his head and frowned at the loaf. “Didn’t Harper’s mom give that to us?”
“She did, but she’ll probably be by next week with something else.”
“Are you allowed to give away presents like that?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s called re-gifting.”
We walked next door and found Allie in the side yard by the shed, engaged in a serious battle of wills with a rather decrepit-looking lawn mower. She had on a pair of cut-offs and a black tank top, and her dark brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, little wisps plastered to her sweaty forehead. She didn’t see us approach, and she gave the lawn mower a little kick.
“Fucker,” she said.
Declan’s eyes widened, and he clapped his hand over his mouth. His movement must have caught Allie’s eye because she looked up, a horrified expression crossing her face when she saw that it was us.
“Oh my God,” she said. “I didn’t realize that you guys were there. I totally didn’t just say that.”
“Say what?” I asked, even though it was clear that we had both heard her.
“Dad tells me to say mothertrucker,” Declan said.
I nudged him. “Hey now. We’ve actually both been working on not using language that we shouldn’t, right?” I nodded toward the lawn mower. “You need any help with that?”
She gave me a sheepish look. “Well... I had these grand visions of getting up and mowing the lawn and then maybe pruning some of those bushes, but... I seem to have run into a bit of a road block.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Go ahead,” she said, brushing the wisps of hair back from her forehead.
“Oh, we brought you this,” I said, handing her the orange poppy seed bread. “It’s a belated housewarming gift.”
Declan looked up at me as Allie took it. “I thought you said it was a re-gift.”
I ignored him and went over to the lawn mower, though I could see that Allie was trying to hide her smile. “It’s got fuel in it?” I asked.
“I do know enough to do that,” she said.
I looked down at the front of the lawn mower. “It’s probably the spark plug,” I said. I disconnected the spark plug wire and examined it. “The wire hood looks okay. Let me just run back to the house and get a wrench. Come on, Declan.”
“He can hang out here with me,” Allie said. “If he wants. It’s the least I can do if you’re going to be able to get this lawn mower started for me.”
“I wanna stay with Miss Allie!” Declan said.
“Should we go have a slice of this bread?” she asked.
“Okay.” He grinned. “Harper’s mom said it was orange poppy seed bread when she dropped it off.”
I went back over to my house and into the garage and found my spark plug wrench. I was willing to bet it was old and she’d probably need to replace it, but maybe I could get it started by adjusting the gap.
I found myself actually hoping that it would need to be replaced, because then maybe we could all take a trip into town to go to the hardware store, but after I closed the gap a little and reconnected it, it started just fine.
“My hero,” Allie said, a dry note in her voice. She smiled. “Thank you. I really mean that.”
“If you need help with anything else, just ask,” I said. “You know where we live.”
