by Amy Brent
We arrived at the doctor’s office without my own ignorance being put on display, and I helped her out. It seemed like she was finally big enough to where she couldn’t get out before I crossed around the car to get to her.
We walked in and I took a seat while she went up to the receptionist desk. Looking around, I saw tons of pregnant women, ranging from still straight-sized, to Nicole’s level to full on ready to pop. Almost all of them had someone with them, either significant others, or mothers, or friends. There were one or two that were alone, and I couldn’t help but worry if they were okay. I hated the thought of Nicole having to be here alone and I was suddenly very grateful that she had invited me.
Not too much later, she waddled back to me and sat down. “Now it’s time to hurry up and wait, right?” She asked, laughing lightly.
“Is that the way it normally goes?”
“Normally go-” she sputtered. “Are you telling me that you don’t have to wait when you go to the doctors?”
“Well no, I have a personal one and I would never go there if I did.”
“I-I…” She shook her head and I couldn’t tell if she was impressed or disgusted with my answer. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Does anything have to be said?”
“Well-”
“Miss Arden?”
Surprised, we both looked to the door leading to the doctor’s area to see a Nurse standing there, looking expectantly out into the waiting area.
“That’s me!” Nicole said, standing up and hurrying over. As she stood, she grabbed my hand and pulled me with her.
The contact, as innocuous as it was, sent fire licking up my arm and right down my spine. She really was something else, wasn’t she? But I didn’t have time to think about it much before we were shown into a room and told the doctor would be with us soon.
I sat down on the plain, plastic chair and looked around. The table for examination was covered with a papery sheet instead of an actual bed-linen, and the lights were mostly fluorescent. Was this how the other half lived? How decidedly unpleasant.
“Ah, my favorite part of all this, waiting for the doctor to arrive.”
“But that’s what the waiting room is for.”
She gave me another look. “You cannot tell me that your riche experience at the doctor is that much different from my poor one.”
“I didn’t think that it was until this moment.” I answered. “But I’m quickly learning that may be incorrect.”
She just shook her head, seemingly amused at my ignorance. “You wait in the waiting room until it’s almost your turn. Then they bring you to the appointment room until you wait some more until finally the doctor comes to see you.”
“That seems like a huge waste of time.”
“And now you know why the poor don’t go to the doctors even if they can get free healthcare. Taking the time off work and sitting around forever isn’t always affordable.”
“I guess I just never realized how much not having money could effect your life. I mean sure, I knew it meant you couldn’t buy whatever you wanted, or have certain things, but it seems even if you’re not completely destitute, even the simplest of things can be a struggle.”
“Now you’re getting it. They say money can’t buy happiness, but it can certainly buy health, security and peace for you and all of your descendants.”
I looked around at the plain room we were in and all the medical equipment present. I looked at Nicole’s clothes which had obviously been recently purchased to accommodate her growing stomach. I looked to the smile of her face and how stress wasn’t hanging behind her eyes like last time.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” she retorted, batting her eyes at me in that adorable way that she had.
“Careful, I’m sure too much arrogance is bad for the baby.”
“Uh-huh, says the man who clearly is the biggest expert on babies.”
“Oh, clearly.”
We both laughed and continued to banter back and forth, passing time while the doctor did whatever it was that they were doing. But the entire time, I could hear my lawyer’s words playing in my head on a loop.
You know you’re being taken for a ride, right?
You’re just her meal ticket.
And every time I shoved them under, telling myself that was not what any of this away about, my mind would conjure one of my parents or close friends to tell me how crazy I was being.
She’s using you for this money.
You don’t even know if the child is yours.
This girl is a stranger and she has you wrapped around her fingers so tightly if she said jump, you’d ask how high.
I didn’t know what had caused this sudden rush of distrust, but I wasn’t enjoying it. Hopefully, I could shut it down and out of my mind before it ruined my entire trip here.
Chapter Twenty-Four
~James~
In the end it took nearly half an hour for the doctor to knock on the door, which was twenty-five minutes too long, in my opinion.
She was a tall, heavy woman who had the particular body type that spoke of her having quite a bit of muscle but also liking pizza. Not exactly what I’d expect a doctor to look like, but she was clean and spoke professionally, and that was what mattered.
“Hello Miss Arden, nice to meet you. I’m Doctor Matterbjorn. I hear that you’re a bit behind on your prenatal visits?”
“That would be fairly accurate.” Nicole responded sheepishly, her expression one of slight regret.
“Any particular reason? Fear of doctors? Too busy?”
‘Financial, mostly. I just recently got insurance.”
“Ah, I see. Well we’ve got a full docket then today. I’ll take some of your vitals, we’ll record your wait, and when did you eat last?”
“Yesterday around ten pm. I figured you might need some stuff and having food would throw that off.”
“Then you were correct. We’ll do a little bit of an ultrasound to make sure that the little one is growing right, maybe hear a heartbeat. After that, I’m gonna have you pee in a cup for me, then when we’re finally all done here, I’ll send you next door to the lab for some blood tests.”
“Yeah, that pretty much what I thought would happen. Why don’t we get started?”
“My thoughts exactly. Now, if you could roll up your sleeve, I’ll take your blood pressure and listen to Mama’s heart first.”
I got out of the chair and moved to stand against the far wall so the doctor could have some room. She was both efficient and professional as she took all the readings she needed, and in less than five minutes she was walking Nicole out to check her weight.
I decided to stay in the room for that. Although Nicole was showing that she appreciated my presence, I wasn’t exactly sure she wanted me to be privy of her weight. People could be weird about that sometimes. And the last thing I needed was for things to be weirder between us. While we got along most of the time, there were always those moments where we realized what a bizarre situation we were in and things got awkward. I wanted to avoid those as much as possible.
Fortunately, it didn’t take them long to come back, and soon she was back on the table while the doctor pulled over the large machine next to me. Nicole lifted her shirt, revealing her belly for the first time since we had slept together. Her gold tinted skin was smooth, despite how far it was being stretched.
I was half expecting the deep lightning bolts of damage that usually happened whenever skin was stretched too far, but she seemed not to have any so far. Granted, she had a whole lot more growing to do considering there were still six months ago.
The doctor put on some gloves and grabbed a tube that was in one of the shelves. With a sort of matter of factness that could only come from dealing with people’s vaginas all day, she squirted a large dollop of jelly like liquid into her hand before smearing it all around Nicole’s middle.
“Ultrasound fluid,” she said, see
ing my curious look. “It helps the wand glide better and gets us a better picture.”
“Ah, I see.”
“You should come sit back in that chair again,” she said with a smile. “You’re not going to want to miss this.”
“Oh, alright.”
I squeezed past her and the machine, settling down in the chair. There was a whole lot of beeping and booping and whirring, until finally the machine was up and running and the doctor was pressing the ‘wand’ against Nicole’s stomach.
I was concerned a bit at how hard she was pushing, causing Nicole’s stomach to bend inwards a little, but neither of the woman seemed to notice, chatting away about symptoms and what to expect in the future and what kind of shoes were the most comfortable if she was going to keep working.
Nothing happened for what seemed like an eternity to me, just a staticky sort of noise emitting from what I guessed was the ultrasound machine. But then, just when I was wondering if this was all an overhyped thing that I would never understand, a strange sort of noise came from the speaker.
“There we are,” the doctor said. “I almost have it.”
She moved the wand around a bit more and then it was coming in loud and clear. The sound was hard to describe. It was fast, so fast, and loud. There was a strangely mechanical sort of quality to it, but I was guessing that was from the machine. But the longer it went on, the more I recognized it as something human.
“Is that…?” I asked, hardly daring to form the words.
“Yes indeed, that is your baby’s heartrate there. Strong and perfect for its current developmental level.”
I listened, and with every single thump, a strange emotion overcame me that I had zero words for. It was like the entire world fell away and there was only the life in front of me. All of the potential for this new and beautiful life stretched out before me, and I could see pretty much everything. The day they first learned to walk, their first big fall, their first holiday, their first day of school, their first love and their first heartbreak.
I saw love and happiness, tears and hurt, and most of all I saw everything that I had ever wanted in my life all coalesced into one being. It took my breath away while also making my heart swell to near painful levels.
“If both of you look at the screen, you can see it too. Here’s its little head, and that movement you see is your heart.”
I whipped my head towards the screen, watching as the white and black made a sketchy sort of image. Right then and there, I saw the first glimpse of my little baby.
“Oh… oh my goodness,” Nicole murmured, and I could hear the tears in her eyes. “That’s... that’s our baby.”
“That’s our baby,” I agreed. I wasn’t really much of a crier, but if I was, I would have right then and there. Although I obviously had known that a child was growing inside of her, it had been an abstract idea, one that was hung in limbo half a year in the future.
But now… now it was wholly rooted in reality. We were bringing a child into this world. Something vulnerable, perfect and wonderful.
“Can you tell what sex it is?”
“Unfortunately no, the position it’s in is not giving a clear view of its genitals, and it’s still a bit early. But we can check again at your next appointment.”
“That’s alright. I don’t mind. As long as its happy and healthy, then so am I. Right James?”
I nodded, unable to speak. I was still dealing with my entire world changing irreparably and I wasn’t quite prepared for human speech yet.
The doctor finished up and started shutting down the machine. She wiped a good amount of the goop off Nicole’s stomach before handing her a damp hand towel and an empty little container.
“Here you are if you want to clean yourself up a little more. And once you’re ready, bathroom is down the hall and to the right. I’ll need you to fill that up, put it in the little cabinet in there and you’ll be good to go next door for your blood test.”
“Thanks,” was all Nicole could say and I didn’t blame her one bit. Naturally this was just a run of the mill moment for the good doctor, but it was so much more to us. “See you in a month.”
“I better!”
And then the doctor was gone, leaving Nicole and us completely alone.
We just looked at each other for a long moment, eyes full of words that we couldn’t articulate. Something profound had just happened to us, and between us, and I was pretty sure we were both realizing there was no going back.
“Did that really just happen?” Nicole asked, laughing nervously.
“I think it did, but I’m still not entirely sure.”
We both laughed at that, and I stood, walking over to her. “Do you need any help cleaning up?”
“Nah, I got it,” she said, moving her hands as if she had completely forgotten than she had been given a towel and quickly wiping her belly. “I gotta keep some semblance of independency, don’t I?”
“I suppose.”
She finished up, but still her hand out for me to help her up. I did, and she slid to the ground. Grabbing the cup, she gave me a shaky sort of smile. “Well, I’m going to conclude this magical moment by going to pee in this little container. Sound good?”
“Sounds good.”
With that, she waddled off, leaving me alone with my thoughts. And what thoughts they were. My entire mind was scrubbed from all of the doubts I had been harboring. I knew, without a doubt, I needed this child in my life.
And that was all that mattered.
***
It didn’t take that long for her to finish up, but then we were heading next door and that did indeed take a considerable amount of time. When we finally did finish, it was well past lunch and I was fairly starving.
“So, where do you wanna go?” I asked as we both got into the car.
“For what?” She asked, looking to me with confusion. I could tell after all the being poked, prodded and siphoned from that she was quite tired.
“For food. I’m guessing you’re hungry?”
She seemed to think for a moment before sinking into the passenger’s seat. “Actually, as nice as that sounds, I’m actually really nauseous right now, so I’d like to go home and lay down for a short bit.”
I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, but I understood. After what I had seen today, she could tell me that she wanted to never have her feet touch the Earth again and I would hire someone to carry her around twenty-four seven.
“No problem. Let’s get you home, shall we?”
“Thank you,” she said, heaving a sigh of relief. “Maybe after I lay down, we can get something for dinner?”
“Sure, I’ll look around for where I want to eat and answer some emails.”
“Great,” she said, her eyes fluttering closed. I could tell from her breathing that she wasn’t entirely asleep, but that she was quickly getting there. Putting on some quiet music, I plugged her address into the GPS and drove along, my mind trying to catch up to everything that had happened.
And a lot had certainly happened, hadn’t it? Somehow, it seemed like I was in an entirely different reality than I had been this morning, and not in a bad way. It wasn’t until we were driving down the highway and I passed a billboard for a lawyer that I even remembered we were also supposed to handle divorce stuff today.
Oh well, that could wait. I certainly didn’t want to drag a nauseous Nicole into Trevor’s office just for her to vomit everywhere. No, we would go to her place and she could rest while I picked out where I wanted us to eat.
The drive was surprisingly pleasant considering that Nicole’s head kept bobbing up and down as she kept almost falling asleep. She finally perked up when we almost reached her place, sniffing slightly.
“That’s the gyro shop, right?”
I laughed. “Did you really wake up just because you smelled that?”
“Yeah. Pregnancy nose is a hell of a thing.”
“I guess it is. Does that make you hungry?”
> “Kinda,” she said, wincing as she looked out the window. “But also, kinda makes me want to turn my stomach inside out and shake it a bit.”
“That sounds uncomfortable.”
“My whole life is un comfortable at this point.”
“Fair enough.”
She laughed as we turned into her complex. “I guess you-” she stopped mid-sentence and I saw her entire posture change. Suddenly she was sitting bolt upright, and I could practically feel the tension radiating off of her like electricity.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, alarm bells going off in my mind.
“Nothing. Don’t park, pull over.”
“What?”
“Let me out now!”
I’d never heard her speak that way, so I did, pulling to the side of the entrance and throwing on my flashers. Without another word, she got out of the car and stormed towards the entrance of her building.
I had no idea what was going on with her until I saw there was a strange man waiting there. He was dressed casually, but I could tell even from where he was that he was fairly built and powerful.
Who the hell was this? Some boyfriend? A drug dealer? Was I really being an idiot and the con was falling apart right in front of my face because her partner had showed up uninvited?
