A quick rap sounded and the door flew open. “Hello, Mia. And who’s this?” Dr. Mahoney moved quickly to Babs and thrust out his hand. “Dan Mahoney.”
“Hello, Dr. Mahoney.” Babs was practically purring. “Barbara Rathbun. It’s such an honor to meet the man who’s taken such good medical care of my daughter.”
Mia rolled her eyes behind Dr. Mahoney’s back. She’d had only a handful of appointments with this man and knew less about him than she knew about the Supreme Court justices, even if he had seen her foo-foo.
“Pleasure,” he said and pushed his clipboard roughly onto the counter by the sink. He lathered his hands into an impressive mountain of foam and checked Mia’s chart as he rinsed. “So Mia, twenty-one weeks. Any issues?” He tossed a paper towel into the trash receptacle and spun on a wheeled stool to the end of the exam table.
Mia found it disconcerting to have a conversation with a man whose eyes were at her knee-level, but she kept her legs knit tightly together and tried to act natural. “I don’t think so. I’m feeling much less nauseous now. And I’m not as tired.”
“If I may,” Babs interrupted. Mia shot her a look, which went expertly ignored. “Dr. Mahoney, Mia has been working very long hours at her job. She comes home exhausted and I can’t imagine that’s good for a growing baby.”
Mia looked at Babs in disbelief. Long hours? She was home by six every night and Babs had never mentioned this before.
Dr. Mahoney didn’t look at Babs but stopped his scribbling and raised his gaze quickly to Mia. “What do you do for a living again?”
“I’m a social worker.”
“So no manual exertion but emotional exhaustion?”
Mia pictured Carl and his aversion to conflict, her office cubicle that had seen nary a human for three days, the welcome visit from Flor the previous week when they’d set her up with the WIC office and discussed their shared distaste for maternity clothes. “No, I don’t feel emotionally exhausted.”
Dr. Mahoney went back to his clipboard. “Keep an eye on it, Mrs. Rathbun, but I think she’s doing fine.”
Babs put a hand on one Spanx-ed hip and tried again. “She does yoga.”
“Great for the joints,” Dr. Mahoney said, flipping back a few pages in Mia’s chart. “Might even help with breathing during delivery, though I don’t know of any empirical studies to support that. Just be careful with twisting, balancing, anything that doesn’t feel right.”
Babs’s face pinked. Mia could hear the commencement of foot tapping. Perhaps Mayo Clinic wasn’t the bastion of medical excellence Aunt Ruthie and the sheik suggested.
“Blood pressure looks good, pulse is fine. Feeling the baby move?”
“Yes.” Mia smiled. “Not so much today but I’ve felt lots of jabs and kicks in the night.”
“Great. Let’s take a look.” Dr. Mahoney retrieved a tape measure from a pocket in his lab coat and asked Mia to lie down and expose her belly. “Measuring just fine, twenty-one centimeters. When was your last pap smear?”
“I had one right before I got pregnant,” Mia said, thanking the Lord above for His tender mercies that required only one pap a year. Enduring that kind of cervical exploration with her mother watching from behind the doctor’s ear would have put Mia into orbit, or at least premature labor.
“We’ll listen for a heartbeat and then get you over to the ultrasound room.” Dr. Mahoney turned on the portable Doppler machine he held in one hand and squirted a light blue gel over Mia’s belly.
Babs cooed. “Oh, this is so exciting! Hearing my first grandchild’s heartbeat!” She moved to the side of the table and watched Dr. Mahoney move the microphone over Mia’s middle.
He cleared his throat. “Mrs. Rathbun, do you live here or are you visiting Mia?”
Babs straightened. “Both, really. I’m visiting but have decided to live here until Mia has the baby. Perhaps that might seem drastic to some, but I say nothing is inconvenient when it comes to my children.”
“That’s nice,” Dr. Mahoney said distractedly.
The hope on Babs’s face fell, so quickly had her conversational prowess been curtailed.
Mia watched the doctor’s face and felt her heart begin to pound. “What’s wrong?” she said. Her mouth had gone dry and she swallowed hard to conjure up some moisture.
Dr. Mahoney did not respond but continued to move the probe around her belly. After a few more attempts, he switched off the machine. “My Doppler must be off. Let’s walk over to ultrasound to get a better look.”
“What does that mean?” Babs’s voice ratcheted up a few notes on the scale. “Can’t you find the heartbeat? Oh, dear God, is there something wrong with the baby?” Babs’s lower lip began to tremble and she clutched her daughter’s hand.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Dr. Mahoney said, not trying very hard to mask his annoyance with Babs’s commentary. “The ultrasound will give us a much more accurate picture of what’s going on.” He threw open the door and barreled down the hall ahead of the women.
Later, when she tried to remember details of the next moments, Mia was unable to draw any defined edges on the images that pushed through her blurry memories. Babs had held fiercely to her hand as they walked to the other side of the clinic. She remembered being oddly preoccupied with her hands, which had become very cold, so much so that they felt apart from the rest of her body. Perhaps the baby was cold, she thought, wondering if that might explain the quietness in her belly. The technician who normally performed ultrasounds for the clinic left when Dr. Mahoney offered a few quiet words of explanation. The room was dark, photos of the tech’s family littering a fabric-covered bulletin board hanging above her desk. Mia watched the ceiling tiles as the doctor readied himself for the sonogram. Babs hovered by Mia’s head and occasionally sniffled into a wad of Kleenexes she’d taken from the exam room.
The hush among them broke with Dr. Mahoney’s voice. “All right, Mia. I need you lift your blouse to expose your abdomen.”
The coolness of the gel made a hard shiver ripple through her body.
“Sorry,” Dr. Mahoney muttered. He seemed frustrated with the computer. Babs sniffed when he cursed under his breath.
“Sorry,” he said again. “Having a little trouble getting to the right screen.”
He placed the probe in the goop on Mia’s belly. She waited for long, long moments for him to say something, anything, as he watched the computer screen.
“Jesus, help us,” Babs prayed. She painted invisible lines with her shaking forefinger on the back of Mia’s hand.
“Not very cooperative,” Dr. Mahoney said.
Mia closed her eyes.
Babs said, “Perhaps we should go get the woman who usually does this sort of thing.” Mia could hear in the way she spoke that her mother had given up all doctor worship on the man as he was determined to fail her time and again.
“No, I mean your baby is uncooperative.” He swung the monitor around with his free hand so they could see. “I guess the kid just didn’t want to be found that easily.” He paused and they watched the baby’s heartbeat flicker regularly in a dark spot in the middle of the chest. Dr. Mahoney shrugged. “As I said, no reason to overreact.” He didn’t look at Babs when he spoke, but his schoolteacher’s scolding was clear in its target. “I can let Lorraine come back in to do all the measurements. She tends not to cuss at computers as much as I do.”
Babs snorted through happy tears.
“But from where I sit, it looks like everything is as it should be. Ten fingers, ten toes, and it looks like your baby has one digit in particular that is of interest.” He pointed with the cursor and Mia allowed herself the first smile during the last twenty minutes. After the wild acrobatics to avoid the Doppler, the baby lay curled up and cozy, sucking its thumb on the right hand.
“Mia sucked h
er thumb until she was thirteen,” Babs said, wiping the corners of her eyes. “She wouldn’t go to summer camp, she was so embarrassed.”
Mia said nothing, even though Babs had her confused with John, who had, indeed, sucked his thumb for years but certainly not into junior high. Mia herself had been partial to her blanket, Miss Tims, named after the woman who lived with a trio of porch-prowling cats at the corner of their block.
“My part is done for now.” Dr. Mahoney patted Mia awkwardly on the arm. “Tell the ladies up front you need to be back in four weeks for the glucose check. It’s routine,” he added quickly. A quick nod to Babs and he tromped out the door.
“Well.” Babs blew her nose before continuing in hushed tones. “He has the bedside manner of a jackhammer, but he kind of grows on you, don’t you think?”
Mia felt her heart begin a begrudging slowdown. She allowed her hand to remain in Babs’s grasp for the rest of the appointment.
16
A Little Help from My Friends
“Ooooh, look at this!”
Mia turned to see Frankie holding up a ghastly pink and purple baby outfit. The crocheted top matched a beret clipped jauntily to one side. Purple corduroy bell bottoms trimmed in large green flowers swung below the hanger.
“Frankie, that’s not gender neutral. We can’t buy a bunch of girl clothes if we don’t know the sex of the baby.”
“Fine, fine,” Frankie said, shoving the outfit back on the rack. “I just want you to see what’s out there for baby clothes this season. You’ll need to be ready as soon as that doctor holds up your screaming child, vagina or penis included.”
“I prefer ‘foo-foo’ and ‘Mr. Wiggle.’” Mia held up a soft green sleeper with tiny fruits and vegetables printed on the fabric. “This is cute, right? It’s organic cotton.”
Frankie wrinkled her nose. “Don’t infect your child with your issues. If you get that, Auntie Frankie will need to find one with cupcakes and Cheetos and made out of duct tape, just to balance you out.”
Mia paused in her riffling to rub the back of her neck with one hand. Frankie had been trying to coerce her into a trip to Baby World since the baby was the size of a lima bean, but until that afternoon, Mia had resisted. She just didn’t feel ready to ally herself with the consumption side of having a baby. At her appointments with Dr. Mahoney, she’d flipped through a few pregnancy magazines and had been nothing less than horrified with the unfamiliarity of the baby product empire. The vocabulary was strange: layette (stuff the baby would need, like the veggie sleeper and cloths to spit up on), tummy time (time the baby spent on his or her stomach to encourage neck muscle strength), perineum (some part of her anatomy that was sure to experience trials and tribulations during the ordeal of labor), meconium (baby’s first tar-like bowel movement). These concepts troubled Mia to the point of ignoring them completely until she absolutely had to confront them. In fact she’d likely still be denying Frankie the pleasures of Baby World were it not for the ultrasound experience several weeks before. Something about seeing that little one, eyes closed in ignorant sleep, thumb planted firmly in the mouth, heart beating with stubborn regularity—the image had flipped a switch in Mia’s head and made her begin to see her belly as the very real home of a child. She placed her hand where she felt a flutter from inside and turned to Frankie.
“This place is huge. Can we be done for today and come back some other time?”
“But of course, dear Mia.” Frankie’s eyes sparked with the promise of a return trip. “Registers are up front.” She swung Mia’s cart toward the store entrance and took off at a clip. Amid crib sets, baby swings, and high chairs, they passed an entire section devoted to lactation. Mia walked slowly, gathering in the rows of formula, bottles, plastic nipples, and C-shaped pillows meant to ease the discomfort of holding a baby to one’s breasts. She had to will herself from clutching protectively at her own bosom when they passed a display of breast pumps. The women in the promotional photos smiled peacefully, their work clothes opened at the chest, pantyhose and navy heels still appropriately donned, while the pumps latched on with two enormous suction cups.
“Good Lord,” Mia said aloud and Frankie followed her gaze. “Am I going to have to do that?”
Frankie nodded soberly. “Breast is best. Tailored specifically to the nutritional and developmental needs of your child, your supply regulated by his or her demand, linked to higher IQ scores and fewer incidences of food allergies later in life.”
Mia tore her eyes away from the pumping Stepford wife and planted her gaze on her friend. “Frankie, you have to stop reading What to Expect. It’s starting to creep me out.”
Frankie looked incredulous. “Are you kidding? That is the single most compelling book I’ve read in the last year. And I’m a librarian!” She turned toward the front and resumed her walk toward the register.
The woman who rang up Mia’s purchases would have been better matched as a penitentiary warden than as the parting gesture of customer service at a baby supply store. Her hair was pulled back so severely and with such tension at the hairline, Mia found it difficult to concentrate on all the prompts of the credit card machine.
“It’s waiting for your signature,” the woman said, flicking the back of the machine with an impressively meaty finger.
“Right.” Mia obeyed quickly to avoid any corporal repercussions. “Good grief. I barely picked up anything and the total is ninety-eight dollars?” She finished her signature and tapped the screen to approve the purchase.
The woman punched a violent series of numbers on her keypad and said, “It’s only starting. By the time you’re my age, they suck you dry for all you’re worth and leave you for dead. Receipt with you or in the bag?” She held the paper above the counter and waited for Mia’s response, her mouth drawn into a line that might have been menacing were they in an alley after dark.
“In the bag, please.” Mia’s voice became small. She could see Frankie biting her nails in her peripheral vision.
“Enjoy this part, when all you have to do is keep it alive.” She handed Mia’s bag over the counter and creaked her lip muscles slightly upward. “Have a nice day and thanks for shopping Baby World.”
“Thank you,” Mia said, holding the bag to her chest and walking shoulder to shoulder with Frankie as they left the store.
“Somebody needs to reacquaint herself with the joys of children,” Frankie said with considerable more bravado than she’d shown in the store. “That woman is in the wrong line of work.”
Mia drank in a deep breath of cooled air and squinted into the sky. Dark, billowy clouds had covered the sun and were preparing to unleash a thunderstorm on the city. The girls quickened their pace to the nearest bus stop and ducked inside the protective shelter as the first voluptuous drops of rain began to fall.
“Frankie, how am I going to pay for a baby?” Mia asked. She lowered herself to the wood bench and waited for Frankie to do the same.
They watched the rain gather momentum, giving a quick and furious bath to the oil-spattered street before them.
“We’ll figure it out.” Frankie put one gangly arm around Mia’s back and pulled her closer. “You just remember you’re not alone. I would never allow it.”
Mia let her head drop on Frankie’s shoulder, which was achingly bony but offered without hesitation.
“If all else fails,” Frankie said, “we can always head back to Baby World for some encouragement from the seasoned professionals.”
Mia laughed, and Frankie laughed too, under a clap of thunder for emphasis.
Released from work an hour early, Mia decided to duck into Gerry’s for a few items before the after-five rush swamped the store. She didn’t like to think of herself as one who lurked but she supposed such a description could be inferred by her behavior once inside. She took care to scan the foot traffic in each aisle
before moving quickly to the next item on her list. It’s not Adam’s fault I’m emotionally unavailable. She began the inner pep talk she’d mastered since the boy’s kindness to her after the rotisserie chicken incident. He shouldn’t be penalized for being a nice guy. But there was just too much stickiness that would ensue if she allowed herself to be wrapped into any sort of connection to him. Though he didn’t seem fazed by the delicacy of her situation, she was in no condition to be having breakdowns with a man she barely knew, particularly since the man she thought she knew very well had skipped town on her and their baby. Six months into her pregnancy Mia industriously erected a tidy set of defenses in order to survive what she was sure might kill her if she weren’t on her most vigilant behavior.
“Hello, Miss Mia,” Gerry said when she approached the register, and did what would have educed a karate chop from Mia were he anyone but Gerry. He patted her belly and cooed, “And I do not neglect you, little one. Hello and God’s blessings on you.” Gerry smiled at Mia and turned to weigh a passel of kiwi. “You are lovely as a pregnant woman, Mia. My son is correct. Not usually is he correct but in this instance I believe he bats one hundred bull’s-eye.”
Mia blushed and unloaded a baguette from her shopping basket. “Thank you, Gerry. You and your son are very kind.”
Gerry said nothing for a moment but Mia thought she saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “Your total is seventeen thirty-eight.”
She handed over a twenty.
Gerry opened the drawer on his register and spoke to the money he counted. “He has not seen you in a while, am I right?” The attempt was casual but Gerry was not a good liar.
“I’ve been so busy with work. And my mother’s in town.…” Mia faltered, knowing she was no more adept at deception than the man bagging her groceries.
“Your change is two dollars and sixty-two cents.” Gerry placed the worn bills in her palm and topped them with a small pile of change. He looked at her with kindness that reached straight out of his hazel-peppered eyes and into hers. “Perhaps you’ll run into Adam soon. He’s a good boy.” Gerry smiled and Mia knew he loved his son in a way that allowed Adam to be as confident as he was.
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