Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Brooke
Desert Rose Women’s Center sits tucked between a dental clinic and a long-abandoned smoothie bar, trying hard to pass as ordinary. The stucco is a safe shade of beige, the kind meant to blend into strip mall sameness.
But the landscaping gives it away. Too precise. Desert plants arranged like they were measured with a ruler. It looks less like a clinic and more like it's trying not to be noticed—or trying a little too hard not to be questioned.
"Last chance to let Sam take your place," he says.
I shake my head. "No way. Not for this."
He doesn't reply; just stares out the windshield through aviator sunglasses, jaw tight like he's scanning for snipers on the rooftops across the street.
I open the door and step into the dry heat that hits like opening an oven. Caleb falls into step beside me, his body language already shifting. He slouches slightly, moves with less precision, drapes one arm casually across my shoulders.
Caleb’s version of boyfriend mode, I guess.
He leans in and whispers in my ear, sending shivers down my spine. “You’re here to ask a few questions. Check in with me on the dot, or I come looking.”
I swallow as rising dread starts to build inside me. Still, I nod. More to placate him than anything.
Pushing through the center's frosted front door, I step inside. At the check-in desk, the receptionist greets us with a voice like a smile that's been used too many times. Mid-forties, tired eyes, scrubs with cartoon cats.
What’s most alarming is that she’s sitting behind bulletproof glass and security cameras are in every corner.
"Hi there. Do you have an appointment?"
"Yes. Amanda Keller."
"Great, hon. Just a few forms to fill out."
Trying not to show how nervous I am, I finish the paperwork and hand it back, paranoia seizing me as the receptionist's eyes linger on my face just a moment too long.
I barely have time to sit before a nurse appears from the back hallway. Younger, scrubs in cheerful blue .
"Amanda?"
I rise, my legs steadier than I expected.
Caleb does too. "Want me to come?"
I shake my head, offering a tight smile that probably doesn't reach my eyes. "I'm good."
His eyes meet mine for one heartbeat too long. A silent warning.
With a nod, I leave him and follow the nurse down the hallway.
She opens the door to a room drowning in pastel, lavender walls that probably tested well in focus groups, white baseboards without a scuff mark.
I take the chair beneath a framed print that reads You Are Safe Here in cursive trying too hard to convince me.
The artificial lavender can't quite mask the industrial bleach underneath, sharp and clinical despite all the soft lighting.
The door opens after exactly three minutes, and the counselor walks in with practiced efficiency.
"Hi, Amanda. I'm Tara. Just going to walk you through a few things today."
She’s young, maybe mid-twenties. Soft-voiced with the kind of careful modulation they teach in sensitivity training. Scrubs with rainbows that make my skin crawl. She doesn’t look like someone who knows what this place really is.
Or maybe she’s just gotten good at pretending.
She settles into the chair across from me with a tablet. No clipboard, no paper trail, no physical notes. Just a slick screen and a smile polished down to muscle memory.
"Can you confirm your last period for me?"
"April tenth."
"Any known health conditions?"
"No."
"First pregnancy?"
I nod.
"Do you feel emotionally supported right now?"
Emotionally supported? I glance at the wall behind her. Lavender paint, inspirational poster, another slogan in cursive font: Know Your Rights.
She follows my line of sight. "Are you aware of your legal rights under Arizona’s new constitutional protection for abortion care?"
My throat tightens. I wish I wasn’t. Lawrence and most of the newsroom were celebrating them. “Yes.”
She taps a few things on the screen, then continues like she’s reading from a checklist, because she probably is.
"Would you like to speak with one of our physicians today?"
"No."
"Do you need information about financial assistance or insurance options?"
"No."
"Okay. I’ll mark that you’re electing to continue with self-managed options and not request further consultation today. "
Self-managed?
As if sanitizing the language changes what's actually happening.
With difficulty, I hide my disgust and force the opening I need.
“Was Eliza Moreno still working here before she died?”
The nurse blinks. “Who?”
I offer a sheepish smile. “Sorry. Guess I’m a little rattled. Eliza was a friend of mine. She told me she worked here; that’s why I chose this clinic.” I pause and watch her reaction. “She died a few days ago.”
My throat tightens on cue. No effort needed there. “I had no idea she was… you know. Struggling that badly.”
The counselor blinks, her face all concern and clean lines. “I don’t recognize the name. Do you know what department she worked in?”
I shrug. “She didn’t say. Front office, maybe?”
She taps again, expression unchanged. “That name doesn’t show up in our current staff log. But we are in the process of moving everything over to the new system. She might not have been transferred just yet.”
Rats. I have no idea when Eliza might’ve been here, if she was at all. Either it’s old data or the caller got it wrong.
“Right. Sorry. Just… needed to ask. ”
The moment shifts—back to routine, back to protocol. “Let’s get your ultrasound scheduled.”
Panic ripples through me at the word “ultrasound.”
Of course they need to confirm a pregnancy.
I chew the inside of my cheek. "Actually," I say, rising with what I hope passes as casual, "could I use the restroom first?"
She gestures toward the hallway. “Second door on the right.”
I thank her, keeping my voice steady even as my pulse hammers in my throat. I can feel her eyes on me as I exit and close the door behind me.
I reach the restroom door and pause, fingers grazing the handle. Behind me, the hallway stays quiet, just the distant murmur of the waiting room and the low hum of overhead lights. No one’s watching. No one expects anything but a nervous woman killing a few minutes before a procedure.
I glance down the hall. A handful of doors line the corridor, but one catches my attention—unmarked, slightly ajar. It looks more like an admin office than a patient room. Nothing medical about it. The kind of space people overlook until someone’s inside it.
Caleb told me to play it safe: go in, come out, head straight back.
But if Eliza worked here, even for a short time, her name, or something tied to her, could be behind that door .
I shift my weight and scan the hallway again. It’s still empty, but it won’t stay that way. The nurse will come looking soon.
I have five minutes, maybe less.
But I have to try. For Eliza.
Caleb
I glance down at the clipboard in my hands. Forms asking for insurance information, emergency contacts, medical history. Questions that assume this is routine. Normal. As if there's a frequent customer discount for this sort of thing.
I scribble fake info across half of it before setting the pen down. I can't bring myself to write one more lie. Not about this. Not here.
A woman two seats over flips through a magazine without looking at it—some celebrity gossip rag with a torn cover. Nobody makes eye contact. Everyone is pretending not to be here.
And me? I'm the guy sitting here looking like I brought his girlfriend in for a quiet fix. Like I’m the kind of man who’d lean in and whisper, “It’s your choice, babe, but I’ll pay for it.”
My gut twists. I’d rather catch a round than be that kind of coward.
The muzak overhead plays something that might have been a hymn once, before they stripped out anything that could offend. Sanitized melody for a sanitized place. Even the music here is lying about what it is.
A couple walks in through the front door, barely out of high school by the looks of them.
The girl's eyes are red-rimmed, shoulders hunched like she's trying to disappear into herself.
The boy's got his arm around her, but his face is blank.
Shut down. Maybe he's the supportive type who'll hold her hand through the whole thing.
Or maybe he's just relieved someone else is solving his problem.
I want to stand up. Walk over there. Tell them there are other options. Tell them about the pregnancy centers just ten miles from here where people will help them figure out how to make this work, with baby clothes and formula and job training and actual support that doesn't end with death.
But I can't. Because I'm here pretending to be someone else entirely.
The receptionist calls another name. "Jessica?
" A woman in her thirties rises from the corner chair, moving like she's walking through water.
Her husband—I assume it's her husband from the wedding ring—doesn't get up.
Just watches her disappear down that hallway with the expression of a man who's already grieving.
How many fathers have sat in these chairs? How many have wanted to say wait but didn't know how? How many drove home afterward wondering if they just became accessories to something they'd spend the rest of their lives trying not to think about?
The forms on my lap feel heavier now. Like they're weighted with all the signatures that came before mine. All the consent forms and insurance waivers and medical releases that turned the most vulnerable moment in someone's life into paperwork.
I’ve never pictured myself as a father. Not seriously. Not in a way that ever felt real.
But now, sitting here in this bland, over-lit room that smells like antiseptic and old paper, I let the thought in.
What if it was Brooke?
What if she looked at me one day, hand resting on her stomach, and told me she was carrying my child?
A life knit together by the same God who made both of us. Not an accident. Not a complication. My own flesh and blood.