Dawn Robertson - Hers

My stomach spins and I take a deep breath, trying to breathe through the wave of nausea. Man, this blows. I take a seat in the black plastic waiting room chair, and dive into the stack of papers. Question after question about my periods, family health history, birth defects, and more shit I have no idea of. Nor will I be calling my parents to ask. I could imagine how that would go over. Hi, Mom? Yeah, I am knocked up by some guy I just met and I need to know if anyone in our family has had any sort of a birth defect? Um. No.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I start digging through the death trap I call a purse and locate it among my eyeliner and the brush I carry around. Star’s bright face lights up the screen, and I quietly answer it, despite the huge no cell phone sign sitting across the waiting room.

“Hey, I can’t talk. Can I call you back in an hour?”

She quickly agrees, although I can tell she is bursting at the seams with some kind of news. I can only hope it is actually good news for once. After all the dead ends in her search for Willow, I wish I could help more.

“Seven James?” A woman in pink scrubs appears in the doorway, smiling, with a manila folder in her hands. But it’s is the blonde holding onto a small crying baby that catches my attention.

“Seven?” Samantha turns in my direction. Samantha Alexander, Daniel’s poor wife. “Oh my goodness! How are you?” Her tone is fake, as the little bundle of blue on her shoulder cries. She bounces her step, and pats him on his back. “Shhhhh, Danny, it’s okay, baby,” she coos to him.

“It was nice seeing you, Samantha,” I say and run in the direction of the bathroom as my sad attempt at a cracker-based breakfast makes its way back up my throat. Might as well pee in the cup while I’m at it.

“Sample,” I say holding the cup out to the poor nurse. “Sorry about that. I can’t stop throwing up for the life of me.”

As the words leave my mouth, I see another woman in scrubs escorting Samantha through the door to the exam rooms. Her curious gaze falls on me, and surely she has heard exactly what I just said. It won’t be long until the entire world knows I was throwing up in the OB/GYN’s office, because that is just the kind of person she is. Hell, I would be absolutely shocked if she hasn’t texted Daniel my exact location already. Fuck!

“Right this way.” The room is cold, and sterile. But this time of year, everything is fucking freezing in New York City. “I am going to need you to strip from the waist down and wait for the doctor.” She turns and walks out of the room, allowing me privacy to strip. Jeez, they could have at least bought me dinner first.

I sit on the table, thumbing over Candy Crush and trying to pass the time until the doctor finally makes her appearance in the ice box of an exam room. My phone indicates a text message, and I open it up. Of course, it is from Levi.

Of course it went bad; those asshats can’t do anything right without me breathing down their necks. I am sure that the fact that I took a single day off sent half the office into a tailspin.

The door slowly opens. “Miss James?” the doctor says, questioning if I am decent.

“Come on in.”

The next half hour goes by in a blur of medical questions, and ends with me begging for some kind of medication to calm my stomach, allowing me to get through a full day of work without announcing to the entire corporate sector that I am with child. I score a prescription for some high priced fancy nausea medication called Zofran, which is supposed to be heaven sent for those women barely surviving their first trimester, like myself.

But it isn’t until the doctor pulls a little machine over and asks me to lay back and spread ’em that I start to worry. Especially when the machine comes attached with a wand that looks like the vibrator I keep in my toy closet.

“And that is for?” I question, and he lets out an uncomfortable laugh.

“I am going to do an ultrasound. Oh, and I have to order a round of blood work. But you don’t have to have that done today. Just make sure you have that prescription filled; the sooner you start taking it, the sooner you will be able to function better.

"This may be a little uncomfortable for a minute.”

He slides the wand inside my very unfriendly vagina, and starts clicking away on the screen. “Looks like you are about five weeks. That little flicker there is the heartbeat. It is too soon to hear it, but it looks pretty strong for five weeks. These dates are only estimates though.”

A little printer spits out a small black and white photo that looks something like a blob. There are no arms or legs. No viable head or extremities. It doesn’t look like much of anything, but knowing it is alive, inside of me, makes me almost sick that my initial thought was abortion. Not even twenty four hours after finding out, I am in full on protective mama bear mode.

“Come back in about two weeks, and we will try to get a listen to the heartbeat.” He smiles, and hands me the prescription, and the photo. “Don’t forget to get the blood work done.” Like that, he is gone.

I hold onto the prescription, and run my thumb over the printed photo. A smile pulls at my lips, just in time for me to dry heave into the garbage can next to the exam table.

The phone rings and rings until a breathless Star finally picks up. “Star? Is everything all right?”

She pauses on the other end of the line, before speaking. “Yes! Seven! I found her! I think, I think I found her!” She doesn’t give very many details, but she goes on about a farmer on the edge of town in Woodstock, something about a brother’s cousin or nephew who had a little girl around Willow’s age. A long story about her parents being killed in a car accident when she was young. Living with family. She gushes about it before stopping to ask me how things in the city are going.

“Well, Star. Are you sitting down?” I have to laugh, because I never thought I would be the one dishing this kind of news to her. In fact, I couldn’t say I was completely surprised when she told me she had a child, because I always pegged her as getting knocked up first. Technically, I guess she did accomplish that before I did.

“Are you okay, Seven?”

“Depends on what you consider okay? I will live, but this baby growing inside me isn’t letting me keep a single fucking thing down. I have been puking my guts out for days.”

I hear an audible gasp on the other end of the line. She is silent for a minute before she starts giggling like a little girl. “Please say it is Levi’s!”

“Of course it is Levi’s! But I am not telling anyone, especially my fucking family. So keep your loud mouth shut!” The town car pulls up to my building. “I gotta run, Star, but when you come home, we will catch up. I hope you find her. Soon.”

Like that, Star is gone and I am on my way up to the penthouse, in serious need of some ginger ale and a fucking nap. But only after I text Levi and let him know everything is okay, and I need for him to pick up my prescription on his way to the penthouse later.

I throw down all the stuff in my arms on the little coffee table next to the couch. Ultrasound picture, cell phone, keys, and purse. My phone vibrates, and Levi has replied.