Читать книгу Born in Syn - Beth Kander - Страница 20

Mrs. Agrawal?” The doctor asked, eyes on his clipboard.

“Doctor.”

“Yes?”

“No, not you,” Nirupa said, testy. “Me. It’s Doctor Agrawal, not Mrs.”

“Oh,” said the doctor. He was in his fifties, maybe sixty, a forgettable white man, hairline retreating, eyes bored behind frameless glasses. Nirupa noted his mild surprise at her interjection, at the assertion of her nomenclature. “Oh. Well. What are you a doctor of, then, Dr. Agrawal?”

“Anthropology,” Nirupa said. “And—”

“Oh, a Ph.D.,” the doctor said, returning to both his clipboard and his judgment.

“Yes,” Nirupa said icily. “I found medical school dull.”

That was true. Throughout undergrad, Nirupa planned on being a physician. She took and aced the courses everyone else hated—biology, physical chemistry, organic chemistry. Pre-med was a breeze and medical school, a foregone conclusion. But after the first two years of medical school, Nirupa realized she was not built for the medical life. The knowledge part was fine. But being in hospitals, dealing with insurance paperwork, talking slowly and patiently and kindly to people in pain and/or simply incapable of comprehending what she was telling them—everything she saw the doctors around her doing, she knew she could not do. She also found her fellow students mostly blandly competitive, without the savvy to back it up.

So she shifted gears, and decided to study people rather than try to fix them. A much better fit.

“Well,” said the doctor, nonplussed. “You’re pregnant.”

The words slammed into her like a semi-truck. Dazed, she twitched her head, shaking off the news.

Somehow, it was a total shock—despite her swollen breasts, despite her morning sickness, despite the “sign” that when she called around for an appointment near campus this morning, the only available doctor was an obstetrician. Of course, Nirupa didn’t believe in signs. She believed in science. And science should mean she wasn’t pregnant.

“But I’m on the pill.”

“Even when properly taken, the pill is not one hundred percent effective,” he said, giving her a look that clearly indicated maybe you should have stayed in medical school longer, Miss Fancy Pants Ph.D.

“Right,” Nirupa said tartly, knowing this but somehow apparently believing that it would always work for her. It always had before, after all. “I know that.”

“Do you have any other questions?”

“Can you tell how far along I am?”

“We can run some tests. We’ve got one of those ultrasound machines, big damn thing. Admin figured we’d need one, might as well be the first around here to get it. When was your last menstrual cycle?”

“I don’t know.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, less and less impressed with her. “Well. Best guess, if you want to skip the machine, you’re first trimester. But could be six weeks along, could be ten.”

Still time enough to take care of it.

“Do you want to schedule the ultrasound?” The doctor asked.

“No,” Nirupa said, decision made. “I’ll—call my own doctor.”

“Your own doctor.” His words were doubtful, but his look only mildly probing. He had other patients to see and had run out of patience for this one. He might have guessed her plans, was likely judging them, but did not care enough to comment on them if so.

“That’s right,” Nirupa said, dismissing him.

“All right, ‘Dr.’ Agrawal,” said the doctor, and left.

Nirupa sat for a moment on the stiff plastic exam table, gathering her ricocheting thoughts. She considered calling Michael. But what would the point be? Telling Michael wouldn’t change a damn thing. Michael was facing his first major publish-or-perish deadline. He was busy. He wouldn’t want to hear this news.

Though Michael and Nirupa had discussed marriage, and would make their relationship legally official down the road, neither academic had any interest in children. They had their research, their ambitions, their goals; things they discussed as passionately as other people discussed more emotional things, late at night, in bed, legs tangled. They talked nakedly about the legacies they wanted. Legacies of the mind, not of the flesh. They could enjoy each other’s bodies, but they would not add to the world’s overall body count. No children. Not for them, not now, not ever.

So she knew what she had to do.

She picked up her carpet bag of a purse and walked confidently out of the examination room. She stopped briefly at the billing desk, confirming her insurance information, declining again the offer of scheduling a follow-up appointment. She walked through the waiting room, where women in various stages of pregnancy or anticipation were sitting in uncomfortable chairs, awaiting their own appointments.

Nirupa had almost reached her clean yellow Volkswagen when she was halted by a familiar, cutting voice.

“What’ll it be, then, Nirupa?”

She turned to see Catherine O’Brien Hess. Michael’s mother. The stout, short Irish woman was planted firmly on the concrete, standing in the parking lot with arms crossed, looking unwaveringly at Nirupa.

“Catherine. What are you doing here?”

“Easy question, easy answer,” Catherine said, her lilting Irish brogue taking a decidedly less musical tone. “I’m here to see you. So now you answer my question, that’s the more important one: what’ll it be?”

“What are you talking—”

“Are you gonna tell my son you’re carryin’ his child, or will it be me that’s tellin’ him?”

“Did you follow me here?”

“I did.”

Nirupa glared at Catherine. This woman was as good a reason as any to never marry Michael. A pushy, Irish-born, Boston-hardened, old-school- Catholic mother-in-law was the stuff of nightmares.

“You shouldn’t have done that. This is none of your business.”

“Isn’t it? My own grandchild?”

“There is no child,” Nirupa said firmly.

“I’ll help you with him.”

“There is no child.”

Catherine’s eyes widened, and her fingers reflexively flew to her neck, stroking the small gold cross permanently nestled above her collarbone.

“You best not be sayin’ what it sounds like you’re sayin’.”

“Go home, Catherine,” Nirupa said, opening the door to her Volkswagen.

But Catherine did not move.

“You tell Michael, or I’ll be tellin’ him.”