Chapter 10
ROSCOE
I glanced over at Jewel Parker, a woman who had been my sometimes-babysitter, my occasional tormentor, and one of my most trusted confidantes when I began to doubt myself during med school.
Jewel was the one who listened to me cry after I lost my first patient, the first to congratulate me when a tricky case had worked out well, and one of the few people I could always count on to tell the truth - and announce it to the world, loud and proud, with no care for the repercussions.
But today, Jewel was quiet when she should have been laughing her ass off, or at least throwing out some of the biting wit she was known for.
It was hard to hold back a smile at the thought. “Charming” and Jewel had never been friends. If anything, she’d probably get nauseated at the thought of someone describing her that way. She’d probably like something more accurately descriptive: ego-shredding, maniacal wit.
Yeah. That worked.
I looked back over at my patient before I reminded her again, “Ashleigh, since you’re older than sixteen . . .”
“I just turned seventeen a few weeks ago.”
“Exactly. And in Texas, that means you can seek your own medical care. So, if you’d like to speak to one - or both - of us alone, that is perfectly within your rights.”
Ashleigh didn’t say anything, but Mrs. Dunlap glared at me. “I put my trust in the doctors at this practice to take care of every member of my family,” she said pointedly. “Both of you have proven that trust was misplaced.”
“Mom! Just let me . . .”
“No, Ashleigh! This is ridiculous!” Mrs. Dunlap insisted. “We came in here to get some answers, and I’m not leaving until I have them. And I mean real answers, not just boundless accusations about your character.”
“You’re an attorney, aren’t you, Mrs. Dunlap?” I asked.
“Yes. Are you worried that you’re going to be sued for malpractice?”
“No. I was just wondering what kind of attorney would make boundless accusations in the face of solid medical proof.”
When Mrs. Dunlap rolled her eyes, I stood up and walked over to the window so I could look out over the courtyard and find something to focus on other than the delicate situation behind me. My lack of focus clearly irritated Mrs. Dunlap. “What are you looking at, Dr. Hamilton?” she snapped.
“I’m looking for the three wise men, because, from what I remember, they showed up the last time this happened.
” Jewel started coughing, and I turned around and glared at her before I looked at Mrs. Dunlap and asked, “Do you remember which direction they came from?
Did they all arrive together from the same destination or . . .“
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Dunlap nearly screeched.
I checked my sarcasm and tried again. “Ashleigh, whether you want to admit it or not, the truth is going to become obvious very soon.”
“I’m not lying!”
I turned around and looked at my new patient before I said, “Okay, let’s say that you are telling the truth and you’re still technically a virgin. It is medically possible for a woman to become pregnant without having full sexual intercourse.”
“It is?” Ashleigh asked. She seemed to realize that her question made her seem guilty, so she added in a firmer tone, “Of course it is! I am a virgin!”
“Regardless, you’re a pregnant virgin who needs an examination, a sonogram, and prenatal care,” I insisted.
“I can’t be pregnant because we only had anal sex!” Ashleigh yelled, her temper finally snapping.
“You did what?” Mrs. Dunlap screeched.
I glanced over and found Jewel with her hand over her mouth. I couldn’t see her smile, but her twinkling eyes gave her away.
“Did you use protection?” I asked, ignoring the shocked woman sitting beside her daughter.
“No. He was a virgin, too, so I know he doesn’t have any diseases or anything.”
Mrs. Dunlap’s head fell forward. She began to rub her forehead as the news sank in - not only that her daughter had been lying, but that she was about to be a grandmother. I wasn’t going to consider how clueless the teenager was when it came to basic biology.
“When was the last time you had a period, Ashleigh?”
“I don’t know, but we broke up at the beginning of the summer before he went to scout camp and I left for band camp.”
Mrs. Dunlap's hand dropped to her lap and her eyes got wide, so I knew she was doing the math and realized that, since the new school year had already started, her daughter was at least a few months pregnant.
“And that was the last time you had . . .” I sighed, knowing I wasn’t going to be able to hold in my temper if I had to do the same word dance again. To avoid it, I asked, “When was the last time you were intimate with anyone?”
“A guy?”
Mrs. Dunlap’s head slowly turned and stared at her daughter in shock.
I wasn’t sure if she was amazed the young woman was so dense, or because she’d just made it sound like she might have been intimate with a female since her last encounter with a male.
Either way, it didn’t change the fact that she was pregnant.
“Yes. A guy.”
“It was him.”
“Right. And that was at the end of the last school year, right around the beginning of the summer?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I need to do a sonogram, Ashleigh.”
“Okay,” she whispered. She seemed to be realizing the weight of the news now that her mother wasn’t arguing so loudly in her defense.
“How did this happen?” Mrs. Dunlap asked, her voice hollow.
“She admitted that they didn’t use a condom,” I reminded her gently.
“But if they were truly having anal sex, then . . . but if he ejaculated near . . . could his sperm really travel all the way up through the . . . what are the odds of this happening?” she stammered.
I glanced at Ashleigh before looking back at Mrs. Dunlap. “Even if the odds are a million to one, it’s obvious that she’s the one in that statistical scenario.”
“When I prayed for my children to be the absolute best in everything, that’s not what I meant!”
“Maybe next time you should be more specific,” I said.
◆◆◆
“You’re kidding!” Spruce exclaimed from across the conference table.
“No. I’m dead serious. She swore she was a virgin, and when I examined her, I found that her hymen was still intact. That’s rare enough on its own these days, but the fact that she got pregnant without any penetration is almost statistically impossible.”
“If you tell me her due date is anywhere near Christmas, I’m going to start prepping for the apocalypse,” Spruce warned.
“We’re in the clear there,” I assured him.
“Actually, the date we celebrate Christmas is not the actual date of the Nativity,” Terran interrupted. “Historians and researchers have taken clues from biblical text and determined that he was most likely born in the fall - probably late September.”
Spruce stared at me. “Are we still in the clear?”
When I nodded, he looked so relieved that I couldn’t resist joking. “Unless the baby comes two weeks earlier than planned.”
“The odds of that happening in a first pregnancy . . .”
“Shut up, Terran!” Spruce snapped at his brother.
“Why are we meeting for lunch again?” Amethyst asked as she looked up from her phone, used to the bickering between siblings and unfazed by the men who were now glaring at each other. “I’ve got things I could be doing right now other than sitting here with you stinky boys.”
“Brooklyn Conner called me this morning and said she had a presentation she’d like to give regarding an investment opportunity,” Jewel explained from her seat at the end of the table.
“When did Brooklyn start an investment firm?”
“She said it was an investment in Rojo, which makes sense considering she’s our new mayor,” Jewel reminded us.
“Unless she’s going to show us where they keep the bat signal, I’m not interested,” Amethyst muttered.
“I think you’ll be interested, or at the very least appreciative of quite a few of the visual slides in my presentation, Amy,” Brooklyn assured Amethyst as she breezed into the room with her laptop bag over her shoulder. “Thank you all for taking time to meet with me today.”
“We didn’t have a choice. When Jewel says we have to be somewhere, we don’t argue.
Otherwise, she refuses to file down her horns for at least a week and puts us all through hell,” Spruce joked.
I had always wondered if his sister might actually be some sort of otherworldly being - namely, one from hell, just like he claimed.
“I just hate to hear her whine,” Amethyst complained, leaning back in her chair to watch Brooklyn unpack.
There was a tantalizing smell a few seconds before Dixie Dean rolled a cart into the room. Suddenly, with the prospect of delicious food from one of my favorite restaurants, I didn’t mind this last-minute meeting nearly as much.
“What are we having?” Amethyst asked Dixie.
“I didn’t have time to create anything too fancy, so I brought each of your favorite dishes from Grazie’s, along with some dessert from Janis’s bakery that was made especially for you guys.”
Amethyst wrinkled her nose. “Did Janis make the dessert herself, or did she have one of her assistants make it?”
“She wouldn’t poison our food,” Jewel assured her.
“How do you know?” Spruce asked. “The other day when I stopped in to get some cookies, she told me that she had a voodoo doll with a lock of my hair and that I should be expecting random pains soon.”
“You’re a medical professional, Spruce. Why would you believe her?” Terran asked.
“You didn’t argue that our sister was spawned in the depths of hell, yet you disagree that Janis Grissom can cause pain with a voodoo doll?” Spruce asked incredulously.
Terran replied flatly, “I have concrete proof that Jewel is a minion of the devil, but nothing that shows Janis would go so far as to poison people.”
I glanced at Jewel. She was wearing a devious smile - the kind that terrified anyone with a soul. I looked over at Dixie when she asked, “What kind of proof do you have that Jewel’s a minion?”