Immaculate (8 page)

Cradled like that, closer to my mom than I'd been in seventeen years, I drifted off to sleep.

chapter five

“I'm sure that
Dr. Keller will be in to speak with you in just a few more minutes now,” the assistant said, poking her head in to grin at us for what must have been the fifth or sixth time since we'd been escorted to the exam room an hour earlier.

“Oh yes, of course, not a problem at all,” my mom said, smiling back, a few more teeth than usual showing between her tight lips. She had her eyes open wide, but I could see the hint of purple on her lower lids, peeking out from beneath the concealer she'd used to hide the past forty-eight hours without real sleep. “We're just so glad she scheduled us on such late notice.”

I'd been glad, too, relieved when my mom had called the office Monday morning at nine o'clock on the dot, the minute they'd opened, and they told her I could be squeezed in at ten. But the gladness had faded as soon as I'd breathed in the office perfume of latex and rubbing alcohol and cheap citrus sanitizer, and felt the cold papery rustle of the exam table under the ultrathin cotton of my mint green gown. It had all become too real then, too official.

The assistant had handed me a plastic cup and pointed me to the bathroom straightaway—luckily, I'd prepared myself this time, and had drunk five solid glasses of water before leaving the house. I wanted to run back to my bedroom, lock the door behind me, and ignore everything for another few days or weeks or months. Ignore everything until it all disappeared and life went back to normal. I wanted to replay that last day of junior year all over again—ask off from my shift like I'd been tempted to do and celebrate the night properly, avoid Iris altogether. But no, here I was instead, sitting half naked with my mom in an OB/GYN office that was almost as cold as Frankie's walk-in freezer.

I had met Dr. Keller before, once or twice—she was the doctor who had delivered my Gracie—but I was only ten at the time, so I didn't remember much, really, other than a pile of flaming red curls and extraordinarily bright pink lips. I'd never had cause to see her for any other reason of my own since then, given that I was still under eighteen, and, despite the current circumstances, still not sexually active.

My dad was under the impression that my mom and I were visiting the standard family doctor, seeing as my “stomach bug” had failed to improve at all over the last two nights. I'd done my best to avoid him the day before, hibernating in my room, tiptoeing to the bathroom, pretending to be sound asleep when he cracked my door to check in on me. But he had persisted, at one point knocking with a tray of scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast and chamomile tea, and I had no choice but to prop myself up against my pillows and smile weakly for at least a little while. Mom had taken Gracie with her to a charity luncheon she was hosting at the historical society, and afterward dropped Gracie off at Aunt Vera's house for a sleepover with our cousins, six-year-old Lucy and three-year-old Danny. I couldn't help but feel relieved—the longer I could put off being the big sister again, the better. I wasn't ready for Gracie.

But being alone together at the house had left Dad feeling even more determined to watch over me. He'd sat on the edge of my bed and done most of the talking while I'd taken tiny bites and forced myself to swallow. I'd tried my best to listen while he'd told me about his day, little anecdotes from church that morning—he'd put my name on the prayer list and Pastor Lewis had sent me his blessings for a speedy recovery—and his plans to clean the gutters and start repainting the garage walls that afternoon, before summer was over and he'd lost the motivation. His list of self-appointed chores never seemed to get any shorter. As an accountant, he spent hours every week hunched over a calculator, which was probably why he could never stop moving around on the weekends, fiddling with this, tampering with that.

But every time I'd looked at him, all I'd been able to see was the confusion and disappointment that would soon take over everything else that he felt for me. I'd kept thinking about how it could be the last simple, easy, lighthearted conversation we'd have for months, maybe even years. Because the truth was, even though I couldn't gauge exactly how he'd react, I did know that he'd never be as accepting as my mom. I wouldn't be that lucky twice.

The doorknob rattled again, and I looked up, expecting the assistant and more of her excuses. But this time it was Dr. Keller standing in the doorway, staring down with a furrowed brow at the clipboard in her hand. The nurse had weighed me and asked me to fill out a basic information sheet when we first got in—my age, the date of my first period, previous medical history, relationship status, the reason for scheduling an appointment. I had left the section about sexual history notably blank, even if it was just a temporary postponement of the inevitable. But I couldn't bring myself to add
zero sexual partners
, not on the same form that made it clear I was there for a pregnancy test. Writing the two entirely contradictory statements side by side in black and white was too ridiculous, too illogical, and I wasn't prepared for a stranger to look at me as if I was insane. Not yet.

Dr. Keller glanced up to smile at both of us, and my stomach lurched, dropping what felt like a solid six inches below where it rightfully belonged in my body. I couldn't do this. I couldn't have this conversation. Not with a certified scientific expert.

Breathe, Mina, breathe
.

“Sallie! My goodness, it's been so long. And, Mina! I would never have recognized you. Gorgeous young lady! Sallie, how's the baby? Not a baby these days, I suppose, eh?” She grinned at my mom as she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

“Oh, Gracie's doing just fine, thanks. So hard to believe she's already seven this year . . .”

“This business certainly makes me feel my age, that's for darn sure,” Dr. Keller said, settling herself down on the rolling stool and wheeling across the room until she was right in front of me. “Seeing all the babies who aren't actually babies anymore around town . . . Constant reminders of how many years have passed.” She sighed, loud and long, a very dramatic sigh that I suspected was part of the doctor shtick she used with all her patients, an attempt to make us feel more comfortable and at ease. My mom chuckled, so maybe it worked. I was always bad at those sorts of predictable, rehearsed adult interactions—I just never knew how to play along. I wished that I had a script for that moment, a line-by-line manual to walk me through the entire appointment, help me to say all the right things, ask all the right questions. To save me from seeming like a totally delusional freak.

“So, now let's see . . . Mina, you're here for a pregnancy test, is that right?” She looked up at me, her head tilted and her eyes squinted in concern, all evidence of the grin from seconds before wiped from her face.

“Yes,” I said, my voice cracking. I coughed and cleared my throat. “Yes, that's why I'm here.”

“Well, then, my assistant, Jamie, will be joining us any minute now for the physical exam, and she should have the test results with her from your urine sample. But let's discuss some of the background first. What symptoms have you had? Why exactly do you think you might be pregnant?”

I mumbled through the list of mystery ailments from the summer—the fatigue, the sore breasts, the aches, the morning sickness—leaving the most obviously significant detail for last. “I also took a boxed pregnancy test over the weekend. Four actually. And they . . . they were all positive. But I figured those tests probably aren't always accurate?”

“Hm. I see.” She looked away for a second, considering. “Actually, Mina, I have to say, the tests rarely give false positives. False negatives, on the other hand, are more common, but that's not what we're worried about today. I suppose there could be other reasons for a false positive . . . There are certain conditions, rare conditions, that can alter your hCG levels and affect a pregnancy reading. But let's not jump to that conclusion first. Like I said, very rare, and I doubt that's what we're looking at here.” She paused to give me a quick polite smile.

“Now, Mina,” she said, plowing ahead, “I notice you left the sexual history section blank, which I'd like to discuss. Do you know who the potential father would be?”

“Uh . . . no. No, I don't.” My mom erupted into a coughing fit from her seat in the corner, and Dr. Keller glanced over at her, eyebrow raised.

“No!” I yelled, piercing the air, much more emphatic and desperate than I would have liked. “That's not really what I meant to say, Dr. Keller. I mean, of course I haven't had multiple partners or anything like that. I haven't . . . I haven't . . .” I sputtered, my cheeks flaming. “I haven't had any partners. Zero.”

My mom and I had discussed this exact question in the car on the way over. We'd decided that it would be better to say I'd had one “sort of” partner, one “sort of” sexual encounter—make up a little lie, at least until we had adequate time for the massive amounts of reflecting necessary to come up with a better, more socially acceptable line.

But I couldn't. I couldn't lie. I couldn't do that to myself or to Nate or to whatever crazy, freakish slipup of nature had caused this all in the first place. It just didn't feel right.

“So you're saying that you haven't had sexual intercourse? That you're still . . . a virgin?” Dr. Keller asked, frowning in confusion.

“Yes? Yes. I am.”

“All right, well, there are risk behaviors that wouldn't fully qualify as intercourse, but could possibly lead to pregnancy if the male discharge still penetrated the vagina. It's uncommon, Mina, but is that what you're suggesting may have happened?”

“No,” I whispered, staring down at my lap. “I didn't do anything like that, nothing at all.”

“I see. All right,” Dr. Keller said, twirling her stool around to face my mom. “Sallie, I'm sorry, but would you mind waiting in the hall for a bit? I think it's best I discuss some of this with Mina one-on-one, if you don't mind.”

My mom nodded, looking startled, and fumbled to pick up the strings of her purse. Just as she stood to leave, the door opened and the assistant stepped back inside. Her bright smile had disappeared, I noticed, and was replaced by an ominous look of total blankness. “I'm sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but I wanted to give you the results.” She held out a single sheet of paper in the air as evidence.

“Oh yes, thanks so much, Jamie,” Dr. Keller said, taking it from her and scanning the details. She looked up at me, then over at my mom, hesitating.

“It's fine, you can say it in front of her,” I said, steeling myself for the inevitable. My mom walked over to the exam table, clutching my hand as we waited.

Dr. Keller fixed her eyes on me, her lips a careful, practiced straight line. “The test clearly shows that you're pregnant, Mina.” My mom's grip tightened around my fingers, and I squeezed back.

“Now, again, there is a small chance that it could be a false positive, so I'll need to check for a few things during the physical examination, and I'd also like to do an ultrasound today. I want to make sure we know exactly what we're dealing with.”

“Whatever you think is best.” I had nothing else to say. I wasn't surprised by the results—I was more surprised that I wasn't surprised, really. But I'd known the answer all along, hadn't I? Probably before Hannah and Izzy had even voiced their suspicions. Some small part of me had known. Some small part of me that I'd refused to acknowledge, not until I had to.

“Sallie,” Dr. Keller said, looking over at my mom. “If you could just step out while I give Mina a routine physical and ask a few questions, I'll have Jamie come and get you for the ultrasound. It shouldn't be too long.”

“I'll be okay,” I said to my mom, tilting my head up to kiss her on the cheek. I hoped that was true.

“I love you, sweetie,” she whispered. “I'll be right outside if you need me.” She turned and walked out, leaving me alone with Dr. Keller and her doubting eyes.

I tried to detach myself from the room and the doctor and everything that happened next. I breathed in and out while she checked my heart and my lungs, and I leaned back as she kneaded my abdomen. I lifted my right hand, then my left hand after she pulled down the robe for my breast exam. I jolted a few times, her strong mechanical fingers jabbing too hard at my already sore and swollen chest.

“Relax now, Mina,” she said, situating my feet into place in the stirrups, my gown tented over my bent knees. “I'm going to put the speculum in now, and you're going to feel some pressure. It may feel a little uncomfortable, but it won't be painful, I promise.” I pinched my eyes shut as hard as they would close, but tears still leaked out, dripping down the sides of my cheeks. I tried to think of happier times, happier places—sitting on the counter in my grandmother's old kitchen, watching her cook her classic roast beef and mashed potatoes every Sunday afternoon, the sunlight from the window so warm and golden on my face; telling bedtime stories to Gracie, her soft little body propped against mine as she asked for
The Lorax
over and over and over; reading the first Harry Potter book out loud with Nate, an entire rainy Saturday on the couch passing the book back and forth, chapter by chapter, all the way through.