They both stood up and waved.
In the moment before the skiff reached the wharf Eliza did something that surprised her. Later, she couldn’t have said what on earth possessed her to take the conversation in this direction. She turned to Mary and said, “You know what my mother used to tell me?”
“What?”
“She used to say, ‘When in doubt, choose brave.’?”
Mary considered this. “I like that,” she said.
“It sounds corny,” admitted Eliza. It really did, now that she’d spoken the words aloud, it sounded like something Zoe would roll her eyes at. Although truthfully the words had sustained her again and again throughout her life. “But it’s amazing how many different circumstances it suits.”
“Maybe,” said Mary.
Eliza took a deep breath and watched as the skiff grew closer and closer and she steeled herself for what was to come.
11
LITTLE HARBOR, MAINE
Mary
The lady at the clinic reception desk had brown eyes, dairy-cow eyes, and a soft bosom—her boobs were practically napping on the desk in front of her—that made Mary want to sink into her arms and stay for a week and a half. Mary’s throat was dry and scratchy, and when she opened her mouth to say her name she realized she hadn’t spoken to anyone since Vivienne left for work in the morning. She hadn’t eaten anything, either, and her stomach complained about that. Loudly.
“Okay,” said the woman. “Let’s get you sorted out, then. Better get comfortable, there’s a bunch of forms the first visit. If you have an insurance card, I’ll go ahead and make a copy.”
Mary lowered her eyes and whispered, “I don’t.”
“Okay,” said the woman, extra cheerfully. “No problem, insurance isn’t required for treatment here.”
It was your basic form: name, address, date of birth, previous health conditions, etc., etc. Date of last period. Reason for today’s visit. Ugh ugh ugh. Pregnant, Mary wrote miserably, but she didn’t allow her eyes to fill. In not too long she was going to be a mother. She couldn’t allow herself to go to pieces over a simple little form. Pull it together, Mary.
The dairy-cow woman at the desk told Mary that a counselor would call her any minute, so Mary picked up a magazine and pretended to read it until she heard her name. When she did, she followed the counselor down a long hallway and through a doorway and into a room with white walls and two chairs. This woman looked nothing like a dairy cow; she was small, smaller than Mary, with brown hair cut close to her head (too short, too boyish, Vivienne would say), no makeup, no breasts. “I’m Sa-rah,” said the woman, leaning on the first syllable. “I’m a medical assistant and a counselor here, and I’m going to start by asking you some questions, and then you’ll see our nurse practitioner, Patricia. K?”
“Okay,” said Mary. She sat in the chair Sa-rah motioned her to and pressed her knees together so they wouldn’t quiver.
Sarah looked at the forms, cocked her head, and said, “We’ll have you take a pregnancy test in just a minute. Even if you’ve taken five at home, even if you’ve taken fifty. We still do our own.”
“Okay,” said Mary.
Sarah asked the questions the way she seemed to do everything else: quickly, with no movement wasted. She reminded Mary of Vivienne’s friend Sam, who worked in the ICU at Maine Coast Memorial. Sam was Mary’s favorite of Vivienne’s friends.
These were the questions.
“Are you in a committed relationship?”
“Do you feel safe in your relationship?”
“Was the sex consensual?”
“Do you feel safe at home?”
“Are you at all worried that you might have contracted an STD?”
“Are you having any pain?”
These were the answers.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no.
Mary was blushing madly by the end, she was blushing like a freak, but Sarah could have been talking about the weather, she was so casual about the whole thing, and if she noticed the blushing she didn’t say a word about it. Mary put a hand to her cheek to try to cool it and Sarah didn’t seem to notice that either.
When she was done with the questions Sarah sent Mary into a nearby bathroom with a cup and instructions. “To collect your urine,” she said, like it was a hobby, like collecting stamps or exotic rocks. Before filling the cup, Mary let her eyes roam around the bathroom: there were all sorts of posters, and business-card-sized information about hotlines, and full-sized pamphlets. There’s more to life, use protection, said one. Half of all STDs are in people under the age of 25, said another. Silence hides violence, with a woman’s mouth covered by a man’s hand. You are not alone. A third—ugh—showed a pregnant woman with bruises all over her arms. Mary looked at the posters, and what flashed before her was the odd hooded look Josh’s eyes sometimes took on when he got impatient with her.
But these posters were talking about violence, hitting and pushing and hurting, actual hurting. Violence, not impatience. These posters had nothing to do with her, with Josh. She wasn’t these women. She didn’t need a card. When she was done she placed the cup in the little window, as Sarah had instructed her to do.
Mary was relieved to learn that she didn’t have to take off her clothes for an exam, that the nurse practitioner would just talk to her once they had the results of the test. The nurse practitioner, Patricia, was older and taller than Sarah and had the slim body and leathery skin of a passionate hiker or a long-distance runner. She shook Mary’s hand and smiled, and when she smiled deep creases formed around her eyes. She said, very carefully, like the words were infants who required special care, “We have the results of your test. It’s just as you thought, Mary, you’re pregnant. About eight weeks, based on the date of your last period.”
Even though Mary knew this already she realized that she’d been hoping for the test to prove her wrong. She thought, unexpectedly, of Ms. Berry writing a complicated problem on the board and looking to Mary to solve it.
“Now,” said Patricia, “I’m sure you’ve been thinking about your options…”
She waited and looked at Mary until Mary nodded.
“And if you’ve made up your mind one way or the other we don’t have to spend too much time talking about all of them.” She waited again.
“I haven’t,” whispered Mary. “I haven’t made up my mind.”