Stretch Marks

by Kimberly Stuart

  “We just never had to do that part in nursing school.” Carrie Lynn spoke as if she and Mia were Chi Omega sisters meeting for lattes and biscotti. “I mean, I love the one-on-one, talking to Mrs. Jones and putting her at ease before the doctor comes in. But that room?” She shuddered and gestured for Mia to step onto the scale. “It is always that busy. And people are always staring like that.”

  Mia was having one of her more profound waves of nausea and therefore felt exempt from reciprocal communication. Carrie Lynn didn’t seem to notice. She fiddled with the calibration of the scale when Mia stepped up to be weighed.

  “One forty-five. How tall are you?”

  Mia cleared her throat and gathered all her concentration into the Don’t Lose It box in her head. “Five-six.”

  “Room eight, this way.” Carrie Lynn padded down the hall in purple Crocs. They passed through an area recently cleaned with bleach. Synthetic pine scent weighed heavily in the air. Mia breathed through her mouth and scanned the room numbers for eight.

  The door shut and Mia obediently seated herself on the crinkly papered table. Carrie Lynn began her inquisition.

  “And why are we seeing you today, Miss Rathbun?”

  “I can’t seem to shake this flu.”

  “Influenza? You’ve been feverish? Cold symptoms?” Carrie Lynn wrote in loopy letters, dotting each i with carefully inked purple hearts.

  “No, not that kind of flu. I feel nauseous. And unusually tired.” She took a deep breath. “I’m thinking it’s mono. A colleague at work had mono last month. She must have sneezed on me or something.”

  “Let’s leave the diagnosing to Dr. Rivas,” Carrie Lynn said, lips pursed in disapproval. “So no cold symptoms, right?” She drew the word out as she carefully crossed out influenza. “Nausea and fatigue. Any vomiting?”

  “Yes, probably twice a week for the last three weeks.”

  “That’s when the symptoms first began?”

  “Yes.” Mia paused. Carrie Lynn wrote. “Maybe four. Yes, four. I felt sick and tired for a while before I actually started throwing up.”

  Carrie Lynn passed a deliberate purple line through more markings. Mia thought there would be less stress associated with Carrie Lynn’s dictation practices if she’d give up the hearts.

  Left alone to wait for the doctor, Mia lay back on the exam table. She rolled over to a fetal position and tried to fake her body out to think it was relaxed instead of lying prone in a sterile and uncomfortably cold medical clinic. In the room next to hers, a baby cried with reckless abandon. Mia could hear the frantic pleas of the mother to calm down. Insistent shhhhs, sounding nearly like a hum so forced were they, filtered through the plaster between the two rooms. The baby continued to scream.

  A brisk knock shook the door a nanosecond before it flew open.

  “Miss Rathbun, I’m Dr. Rivas. Good to meet you.”

  Mia scrambled to a sitting position. She shook the hand he offered. “Nice to meet you as well.”

  Dr. Rivas strode to the sink and commenced a splashy hand washing. He cranked the paper towel dispenser, hard, three times. Nodding toward the screams in the next room, he said, “Quite the set of lungs in that one. ’Course they all do. Poor mama can’t get any sleep with crying like that.”

  Mia mumbled an appropriately sympathetic response but continued watching with wide eyes Dr. Rivas’s flurry of activity. He flipped open the metal trash receptacle with his foot and slammed the dirty paper towels into the bag. “Whoosh!” he said to no one in particular. Carrie Lynn entered quietly and took up the corner farthest from Mia, purple pen in hand and poised above her chart.

  “So.” Dr. Rivas came to a sliding stop on his rolling stool and sat at an awkward height just below Mia’s knees. “Nausea, fatigue. No headaches?”

  Mia shook her head.

  “Fever? Loose stools?”

  Mia closed her eyes and shook her head.

  He perused the chart offered by Carrie Lynn. “Date of last menstrual period?”

  “Um.” Mia had to concentrate on this new question. “I’m not exactly sure. I switched birth control because I was gaining weight—”

  Dr. Rivas’s head snapped up to Mia’s patella. “Different oral contraceptive?”

  Mia told him the prescription name.

  He slammed shut the folder. “There you have it. A switch like that can make your GI tract go through a rebellious stage. A lot like my two teenaged sons.” He snorted. “The oldest one just got a tattoo that says Viva la revolución.” He shook his head and scrawled a series of marks on Mia’s chart. “What a joke. He drives a Volvo and thinks a revolution would be cool? He’s clueless.” Dr. Rivas thrust the papers to the nurse and rose from his stool. “Carrie Lynn will draw some blood to rule out anything serious. But you should be back to feeling peachy keen in no time.”

  Mia and Carrie Lynn both jumped when the door slammed behind him.

  “That must have been an adjustment too,” Mia ventured.

  “You have no idea,” Carrie Lynn muttered. She withdrew a syringe, cotton swab, and bandage from the cupboard over the sink. “Dr. Rivas has asked for a broad screen of tests. Anemia, diabetes, thyroid. I’ll need you to put up both sleeves so I can check for a good vein.”

  Concerned that vein probing and bloodletting might put her over the edge, Mia shut her eyes and concentrated instead on her cell phone ringing within her purse. It was a peppy Latin number, one she suspected Dr. Rivas’s son might appreciate, particularly when blasting through the speakers of a Volvo.

  By the time she pushed through the door to her apartment, Mia was laden with three burgeoning Save the Seals bags, the day’s mail, and Lars’s dry cleaning. She found it a mystery why a freelance writer needed to professionally launder his clothes when she was usually the only one who saw him in the act of writing. The pollutants and toxins released during the cleaning cycle of one dress shirt alone made the hair stand up on Mia’s neck. It seemed reasonable that Lars deal with his own carbon footprint and allow Mia to steer clear of Sherpa duty to and from the cleaners. But they had agreed early on in their relationship that each other’s passions were not things to be shared, necessarily, just respected. And earlier that month Lars had helped her change their lightbulbs to CFLs. Plus, she reminded herself, he’d been the one to show her the values of going vegetarian. Gratitude for his tutelage coddled Mia into biting her tongue.

  He was out. Mia turned on the hallway light to dispel the gloom of winter’s early dusk. She hung Lars’s shirts in his half of the closet and dropped the sacks and mail on the kitchen table. A light blinked on the answering machine, a Cadillac of a contraption, black with touches of fake dark wood, a technological survivor of the days of Boy George, cassette tapes, and The Facts of Life. Mia and Lars were the only people in their age group holding on to antiquity, much less to a landline. Lars, though, liked it for its nostalgic value, Mia for the fact that it gathered messages for both of them in one spot, a tiny proof they were making a home together. They’d endured a fair share of ribbing from friends but the couple would laugh along with the jibes and the machine stayed.

  She pushed play and reached for a wine glass.

  “Hey, babe, it’s me.” Lars’s voice cut through din in the background. “I’m at Pete and Bryan’s. I’ll probably be out until late, so don’t wait up. And did you get a chance to pick up my shirts? I’m sure you did ’cause you’re awesome.” Mia tried hard to take this as a compliment and not feel on par with Lars’s descriptions of the newest game for his Wii. “Oh, one more thing. Dan and Avery? Remember their fight about getting married or splitting up? Guess who bit the bullet and bought a diamond?” He cackled into the phone. “At least we’re still standing, baby! Still going strong and not selling out! Love you, Mi. See you soon.”

  Mia poured a generous glass of chilled sauv blanc. The se
cond message began with a beat of silence.

  “Hi, honey. It’s me. Mom. Your mother.” Mia reached over to press pause on the machine. That she chose to simply pause the message instead of delete it outright encouraged Mia to believe she was making significant progress. Mia’s mother, Barbara, had been the source of many, many sessions in the care of her therapist, Dr. Liza Finkelstein. After clocking an impressive number of hours with the good doctor, Mia was able to explain with a cool head why Barbara, or Babs as she preferred to be called, was simply not privileged at this point to have a close relationship with her daughter. She had forfeited that right when she’d walked out on Mia and her father the summer after Mia’s high-school graduation. That Mia was headed to college and would have, in effect, walked out on them both in a matter of weeks, was of no consequence, as Mia was the child and Babs was the adult. Mia sighed deeply as she recounted all of these truths, taking an extra moment to remember the exaggerated pain that sprang up still, five years after her father’s death. It was a car accident, an icy road, completely unforeseen and unavoidable. Still, Mia couldn’t help but pair her mother’s disappearing act with the death of her father shortly thereafter. The woman brought destruction with her like some people packed an umbrella in case of rain.

  Mia took a long and careful sip of wine and pushed play. “I’m calling from San Juan, honey. The groups on this cruise are wearing me out. I’ve tried reminding them I’m an activities director, not the Energizer Bunny.” Her laugh was dry and quickly interrupted by a coughing fit. “Sorry about that. I’m fighting a cold. Can you imagine? A cold in Puerto Rico? And those Al Gore people say we have a problem with global warming.”

  Mia glanced at the Inconvenient Truth magnet plastered on the side of her fridge.

  “Aaaanyway, pumpkin, I just wanted to say hello. I hope all is well in your world. Call me anytime on that number I gave you, okay? All right, then. Bye now.”

  Mia had a vague recollection of an international cell number her mother had given her at one point. If the paper on which it was written had escaped the recycling bin, it was certainly hiding somewhere deep within the recesses of her apartment, purposefully forgotten and inaccessible.

  A third beep began another message.

  Clearing of a throat. Then, “Yes, this message is for Mia Rathbun. Mia, this is Dr. Manuel Rivas at the Brookview Clinic. We have some, er, results from your tests. I would appreciate a call to the clinic when you receive this message. Ask for me. Thank you.” Click.

  That’s strange, Mia thought. She couldn’t remember a time when an actual physician had called her at home. A nurse or receptionist, yes. But a doctor? She dialed the number for the clinic and was put through to an answering service. The woman on the other end had been given Mia’s name and the okay to give her Dr. Rivas’s home phone number. Mia’s hands were beginning to shake. His home number? she thought. What was wrong with her?

  The phone at the Rivas home rang once.

  Cancer? Did she have cancer? Her grandmother had died of cancer when she was ninety—

  Second ring.

  Something terminal? Something rare? She’d watched an Oprah once about a girl her age who’d—

  “Hello, Rivas residence.” The speaker sounded like he couldn’t be a day over fourteen but was gunning for the rich baritone of a twenty-something.

  Mia cleared her throat. “Yes, um, my name is Mia Rathbun. I’m returning a call to Dr. Rivas?”

  “Hold on.” The baritone had jumped up a half octave just knowing the caller wasn’t looking for him. Mia heard rustling and shouting behind the haphazard veil of the boy’s hand over the mouthpiece.

  “Manuel Rivas.” The doctor seemed to be slightly out of breath. Mia could hear the rhythm of some kind of exercise equipment.

  “Hello, Dr. Rivas. It’s Mia Rathbun. I returned your call to the clinic but they gave me your home number.…” She trailed off, feeling like she was an unwitting accomplice to a breach in social etiquette.

  “Right, right.” His breathing was labored. “Part of our new initiative to humanize doctor-patient interactions.” He spoke the last words deliberately, as if recalling the PowerPoint presentation by human resources. “I’m just hopping off the elliptical. Hold on one moment, if you will.”

  Mia drummed her fingers on the counter. She considered slamming the contents of her wine glass but thought she might need to have her wits about her.

  “Stop it! Right now, you hear me?”

  Mia sat down. It was getting to be too much. “Excuse me?”

  “No, no, not you. I’m sorry. We got a new puppy at this house in a moment of sheer lunacy on the part of my wife. Something to do with Christmas memory making … Stop it, Ruffles! This is not a toy.”

  The fingers on her free hand massaged her temples. “Dr. Rivas, you left a message regarding my test results?”

  A door slammed shut and a high-pitched whine ensued. “That should do it.” Dr. Rivas cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Mia. Now, your results.”

  Mia closed her eyes.

  “We know why you’ve been bothered with nausea and fatigue.”

  Mia’s voice became very small. “Is it a tumor?”

  Dr. Rivas paused. “No, though this will present similarities.”

  Oh, dear Lord, Mia thought.

  “Mia, you’re pregnant.”

  The breath stopped moving through her body. Mia’s eyes remained open long enough for them to sting. She let out a burst of held air. “But that’s impossible.” It wasn’t a tumor. Not cancer, nothing fatal. Just a seriously misinformed lab tech. She shook her head. “I’m not pregnant.”

  “I understand these things can be hard to take in at first.”

  “No,” she said. Her head wagged back and forth in denial. “It’s the wrong result. There must have been a mix-up in your paperwork. My last name is spelled R-A-T-H-B-U-N. Rathbun, Mia.”

  “Yes, that’s correct,” Dr. Rivas said. His certainty was beginning to aggravate his patient.

  “I’m on birth control. Like a really, really dependable form. I read the insert. It said if used correctly, there was only a—”

  “Two percent chance of failure. That’s also correct. But that still means that two out of one hundred women can experience an unintended pregnancy. In addition, sometimes a change of oral contraceptives can cause a weakening in the efficacy of birth control. Research has confirmed this.”

  “Then your lab must be incorrect!” Mia was pacing in her kitchen. This man was on her last nerve.

  “Mia, we’d like to meet with you and the baby’s father to talk through the next steps.”

  Father? Lars? A father? The thought sent Mia sliding down the wall and onto the linoleum. “I have to go,” she said into her knees. “I have to go now. Thank you, Dr. Rivas.”

  “Mia, it’s very important that you receive good prenatal care until you decide what to do.”

  “Prenatal care,” Mia repeated. “Of course.” She stared at the handset for a moment. Dr. Rivas’s voice floated up to her from some other planet until she found the right button and hung up.

  4

  Full Disclosure

  A rumbling in her stomach nudged Mia to stand. The clock on the microwave said eight o’clock. She couldn’t be held accountable to exact details, but she thought that meant she’d sat on the kitchen floor for nearly two hours. An unopened package of whole-wheat crackers perched on the edge of the pantry cupboard. Mia stared it down, wondering how it had the nerve to look so normal when the universe had toppled on its head. She ripped open the box and tore through a tube of wrapping. Five crackers in, she decided that was enough dinner for the evening. A dusting of cracker crumbs covered the front of her shirt and she left it there out of spite. Toward what or whom she didn’t exactly care.

  Halfway between the kitch
en and her dresser, Mia felt anger start to rise in red blotches on her face and neck. We’re careful, she thought as she tossed out pair after pair of socks looking for her pink cashmeres. We always used protection, we were consenting adults, I took five-count-them-five women’s studies classes in college. She dumped the drawer’s contents out on the bedspread. One pink sock surfaced. She pulled it on her foot and matched it with a green one with black polka dots.

  “I’ll have to terminate,” she said aloud and stopped. One arm was pulled through her favorite organic cotton sweatshirt. She could glimpse the light bulb overhead through the opening at the neckline. Slowly she pulled the sweatshirt on and sat on the edge of her bed. The room vibrated quietly with the words she’d spoken. She felt her declaration become a heavy mass and roll through her chest to settle, quivering, in her gut. An abortion. Her mind swerved to late-night debates with her mother in high school. They’d glower at each other across the kitchen table, her father disappearing early in the conversation to leave the two females to box it out. The discussions had wearied them both, Babs worrying that she’d failed as a mother to have spawned such a liberal daughter, and Mia despairing that Barbara’s archaic thinking about “the sanctity of life” would end up with enough political strength to catapult the country backward into illegal abortions and back-alley dealings in the dark.

  On her bed, now a year shy of thirty, Mia shook her head slowly, struck with the certainty that this pregnancy would continue without her intervention. The knowledge unsettled her and she tried to reason her way out of it. I’m young. It’s not the right time. I’m not ready to be a mother.… All true, she knew, but the cumulative noise made by her sound objections was nothing but a whisper compared to the inescapably loud beating of her heart. She was an adult and this was a child, her and Lars’s child, growing within her. The heartbeat that was making her head ache was the same percussion their child was hearing within her womb. She felt no self-righteousness, merely the surprising weight of something not much bigger than her pinkie.