Looking for Jane (55)

Nancy smiles tightly.

“Do you have to go to the washroom?” Alice asks. “If you do, you should go now. It’s just off the hall through that door there.”

“No, I’m okay. Thanks.”

“All right, then. How are you feeling about this?”

Nancy hesitates.

“It’s okay if you’ve changed your mind,” Alice says. “It happens a lot. It’s perfectly normal.”

“No, no, honestly, I’m okay,” Nancy tells her. “This is all just pretty weird. A bit surreal, you know? I feel like I’m in over my head. I didn’t think this would ever happen to me.”

Alice nods. “Most women don’t.”

“But this is—I mean, this is safe, right? It’s just that I’ve actually seen this before, but not done by a doctor. And I’m a bit…”

“Ah. Okay. Come on with me, and we’ll go meet Dr. Taylor. She’ll explain the procedure, you can see the room, and hopefully that can help put your mind at ease. It’s very common to be nervous.”

Nancy follows the nurse toward another door at the end of the hallway. The floorboards creak: the hallway floor is covered with a worn rug that was probably deep red and green in days long past, but is now a faded pink and pale green. Glancing to her left, Nancy spots a waiting room in what probably used to be the dining room of the old house. It’s dim in there, but she can see the institutional chairs that line the walls and a coffee table strewn with an untidy assortment of magazines. A water cooler stands sentry in one corner, the surface of the water glinting in the yellow light from the streetlamps outside. It’s a warm and comfortable place, though. It smells like peppermint and old wood. Far more like a home than a doctor’s office.

Alice opens the door at the end of the hall. It’s much brighter in here, and Nancy’s eyes squint as they struggle to adjust. Alice shuts the door behind them. Two locks slide into place, and Nancy recalls the many locks on the back-alley abortionist’s door. Her heart begins to race, and she fights to push away the comparison.

She’s facing a room that looks like a cross between a regular doctor’s exam room and what Nancy figures a surgical room must look like, though she’s never had so much as a broken bone in her entire life. The walls are painted plain white and unadorned with windows or decor, save for a fancy scrolled frame that displays Dr. Taylor’s diploma with its official stamped red wax seal. A long exam table is situated in the centre of the room. There are no black sheets this time, just the usual crunchy sterile paper running along the table’s length, with metal stirrups propped up at the end. A pedestal tray stands beside one of the stirrups. It’s covered in a blue fabric, like a paper napkin. Nancy can just make out a glint of silver poking out from underneath it. She swallows hard on a parched throat and turns her focus away from it.

A tall, thin woman with shoulder-length brown hair and sporting light blue scrubs strides toward Nancy and extends her hand. “Dr. Evelyn Taylor. You must be Nancy.”

Nancy nods. “It’s nice to meet you.” They clasp hands. “Thank you for, you know…”

“Of course. You can set your coat and purse down over there, Nancy. Alice and I will give you a few minutes to get changed out of your clothes. I need you to undress from the waist down—you can keep your socks on if you like, sometimes it gets a bit chilly in here—and lie down on the table with this sheet over your bottom half.”

“Okay.”

“You’ve had a PAP test before, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, parts of this procedure will be very similar to a PAP. You’ll have your feet up in the stirrups, and I’ll be using a speculum and inserting some instruments into your vagina, but this time I’ll utilize others to open the cervix and remove the tissue from your uterus. We’re going to give you some painkillers, and a local anesthetic. We try our very best to make this process as quick and painless as we possibly can.”

A leather belt covered in teeth marks.

A subway seat soaked in blood.

“Okay.”

“If you like, Alice will be here to hold your hand, give you a warm or cold cloth for your face, talk to you for a distraction, or whatever else you might need. We want you to feel as relaxed as you can, okay?”

“Okay.”

Dr. Taylor nods again. She has a good manner for this, Nancy acknowledges through her nervousness. Calm and matter-of-fact, but compassionate. She understands what her patients are feeling and thinking. Nancy wonders if she’s ever been on the table herself.

“We’ll leave you to change. Take your time.”

“Okay,” Nancy says again, wondering why she keeps using the word when she knows for a fact that she has never felt less okay in her entire life.



* * *



“We’re about halfway through the procedure, Nancy. You’re doing great.”

Nancy nods to acknowledge Dr. Taylor’s voice, but keeps her eyes closed. Alice squeezes her cold fingers and runs a hand through her hair.

I wonder if she’s a mom, Nancy thinks. She has mom hands.

Then a series of loud bangs rattles the distant front door. Nancy’s eyes snap open to the harsh light of the exam room. Dr. Taylor and Alice freeze mid-movement.

“That was ten—” Alice says.