Chapter 15 #2
Hunter flashes me one of those looks that makes it clear he isn’t just my aunt’s boyfriend, but also her alpha. He doesn’t like to see her worried.
With a defeated frown, I mutter a strained “alright” under my breath and go sort things out while he helps Elmira back in the car.
Doc Coleman’s house is high up on the mountain.
I can’t say I come here often. After living in the city and getting a taste of modern life, advanced healthcare has become something I’m happy to take advantage of.
After all, modern medicine saved me countless times in the service.
It saved Aunt Elmira, too. If she had only treated her illness with the herbal stuff Doc usually recommends, she probably wouldn’t be here today.
And he sure as hell wouldn’t have been able to do the difficult operation that took out her tumor, despite it leaving her paralyzed from the waist down in the end. She’s alive, happy, and cancer-free. That’s all that matters.
As we make the drive, my stomach cramps worse and worse. Besides any disagreements I might have with his methods or beliefs, there are also the memories to contend with…
Painful, horrible memories of coming here with my parents when they were both sick.
I don’t blame the Doc for what happened to them.
They both chose the ‘traditional’ treatments out of their own will and didn’t entertain going to the hospital until it was far too late.
Coleman himself urged them to go to Ridgelake.
I remember that. But once they finally did, even modern medicine couldn’t do anything to help them.
Still, driving up the road reminds me of the times we came here with Daddy. Back when he was pale, skin and bones, and…dying.
It was the same with Mom. I don’t like to relive those moments.
Reminding myself that this time, I may be here for a more positive reason, I look at Elmira next to me. She’s watching me, no doubt with worries and doubts swirling inside her head as well.
I want to say something, but I’m not sure what. Like Hunter said, we might be wrong. Maybe I’m just sick with some bug, and the weight gain is only that… Even though deep down, I already feel that’s not the case.
We park, and I help Hunter get Elmira’s wheelchair out, ignoring their disagreeable mumbling, both of them acting as if I’m suddenly incapable of doing anything.
The impressive two-story cabin that is Doc Coleman’s unofficial practice used to be part of an old resort for the rich on the top of the mountain before the locals ran them out of the area some two, three hundred years ago.
“Go on,” Elmira beckons. I’m spacing out by the car, and the two of them are nearly all the way to the door. With a fortifying breath, I catch up, and we walk in together.
We sit in the waiting room for a while. Silent and still. There’s only one patient in front of us, a young man with a kid. I don’t know his name, but I recognize his face. He’s from around here, probably living higher up the mountain.
I stare—maybe too intently—at his little raven-haired boy, who looks to be about three years old. He glares back at me in that awkward way little kids always do, but I look through him rather than at him, because the thoughts in my mind are getting loud.
How did I not think of this? How could I think all the things we did wouldn’t have consequences?
What am I going to do?
The man with the boy go in after a few minutes. I panic internally for what feels like too long before they walk out and it’s finally my turn.
Doc Coleman walks out, gray hair receding at the sides of his head but still as full on top as I remember. He’s a tall man, and he doesn’t wear a white coat but rather a beige jacket with a checkered flannel underneath.
“Mornin’, everybody,” he says, running his deep-set, brown eyes across our little group.
We must all look stressed as hell, because his brow quickly arches with curiosity.
He invites us into his office, and with his hands clasped together, he turns around to us as he leans against his desk. “Who am I treating today?”
“This one needs a pregnancy test,” Elmira announces, not wasting a second. Both she and Hunter glance at me in a way that they might as well be pointing a big red sign that says ‘idiot’ on it. “And a consequent checkup if…if needed.”
Both of his brows are raised now.
“Alrighty,” he says while aiming for one of the many cabinets against the wall.
After a while, he turns to me with a white strip in his hand and a plastic tub in the other.
“Urinate on this, please. You can place it in the pot afterward. It’s just like the modern pregnancy test, only without all the fancy extras,” he adds confidently.
I nod and take them from him, heading to the clearly marked bathroom on the left.
Once I lock the door behind me, I hear muffled voices. No doubt Auntie Elmira is already explaining the entire situation to him and painting a vivid picture of how foolish I’ve been.
I pee on the stick, and everything takes on a note of the surreal. Did I ever think I’d be here? In this position?
Well, kids have been something I’ve vaguely pictured in my future, but it always felt far, far away.
I’m twenty-seven…so I suppose now’s the time?
My parents already had me by this age, and it’s not like there’s any more adventure I want to experience on my own.
I’ve traveled and lived and nearly died enough.
All that’s left in my heart is a desire for a peaceful existence.
And I’ve achieved exactly that since I started running the store, but I guess that…
even without realizing it, I always pictured it with someone else next to me. With a family we make together.
Obviously, getting knocked up by a man I barely know to be a single parent isn’t the perfect solution to my loneliness. It’s not ideal at all, but…would it really be so bad?
I stare at the strip for a moment before putting it in the plastic pot and tucking myself back in. When I walk out of the bathroom, everyone is already staring at me.
I hand the pot to the Doc.
“Let’s see.” He takes it and goes to the more professional steel table to the side, where he has a glass of water ready.
After taking the strip out, he partially submerges it and stares at it as if that’s going to make it give the results faster.
Oh, the wait is going to kill me. “Your aunt said you’ve been feeling tired.
Any other symptoms?” he asks without looking at me, hand scratching the bottom of his chin.
I haven’t been to the doctor’s with my family since I was a teen, so this all feels rather awkward. I face him, trying to pretend like Elmira and Hunter aren’t here.
Narrowing my eyes, I search my mind for symptoms that could have been more than me being irrationally low after Wren left.
“Well, I’ve definitely been eating a lot more than usual,” I mutter. I thought that was just depression binging. Looking back, maybe the intensity of the hunger—straight-up ravenousness sometimes—should have been a tell. “Which is why I didn’t really find the weight gain that concerning.”
“Aha. I see.” Doc nods, scratching at his short, gray beard while darting his eyes to the test like he’s expecting some intense chemical reaction.
I shift on my feet with a sigh. “And constipation, I guess. Yeah, that’s been…a thing for a while. But I thought that was from eating too much of the wrong things.”
Act like they’re not there. Act like they’re not there. Dualis be good…
I mean, it’s not like I was ever really educated about pregnancy. I learned the same basics everyone else does. Venus might be common around here, but everything’s pretty beta-normative, and women are taught more about it than men, omega or not.
“Sounds like pregnancy symptoms to me, son,” Coleman says as he’s pulling the strip out of the water. He shows it to me, pointing at the two pink lines.
“Is that…?”
“Yep. You are pregnant,” he announces with no emotional connotation to his words, just a straight-up fact. “And if we consider what your aunt told me about the conception possibly being sometime around that awful storm near the end of winter, you should be about…eleven weeks, I reckon?”
It finally hits me. Hearing him say it. Seeing those lines.
The world goes still and silent for a few moments before the panicked beats of my heart burst through like a tidal wave, deafening. My body feels strangely not mine, while simultaneously, as I look down at my stomach, I’m at peace with it in a way I’ve never known before.
I sharply turn to Elmira, seeking comfort or guidance or…something. Her loving eyes study me as if she’s trying to figure out what sort of support I need.
What do I want? What do I want to do about this?
The silence makes my insides coil. Thankfully, the doc seems to know just what to do. He slaps his hands over his thighs, drawing my attention.
“Which happens to be the starting time frame when you can detect the heartbeat with the Doppler. These things can be a bit tricky,” he says, already searching in one of the heavy metal drawers full of equipment for something, whatever this Doppler is, “but I’ve had plenty of practice, so I should be able to find a heartbeat for ya, if…
that’s what you want?” He pauses, staring at me with a small handheld device already in hand.
He’s asking me if I want to go further with this.
It is the same question that’s been hanging over me since Elmira realized.
The Church of Divine Dualis Sovereign has a clear stance on abortion.
It’s not to be done. It is against the wishes of the gods, who made us with the intended purpose of reproducing and purifying the human race.
Of course, that’s the view of the most staunch believers, not the majority of venusfolk who believe in the Dualis…