None of the Above(47)

Speaking slowly, Dr. Johnson introduced me. She asked a few more questions, which Vong answered mostly with nods or headshakes. Then Dr. Johnson went over and started examining her from head to toe. When she moved the gown up to examine Vong’s stomach, Vong’s knees jerked together involuntarily. The movement caught my eye and I saw the stretch marks making faint white lines on her belly. There was an angry red ridge right at her bikini line. A C-section scar?

I felt a raw ache in my chest and closed my eyes. A minute later, Dr. Johnson called me over. Vong was already in the stirrups. I couldn’t see her head anymore because of the drape over her legs.

My gloves stuck to the sweat on my palms. Dr. Johnson asked for a smaller speculum. I stared at the ceiling.

Vong didn’t freak out the way I did when the speculum got in; she barely moved at all. After Dr. Johnson positioned the work light and peeked in between Vong’s legs, she frowned and didn’t ask for a swab like I’d been taught she would. Instead she reached up and pressed on her belly with one hand. She murmured a question that I couldn’t hear and sighed at Vong’s response.

“Was everything okay?” I asked when we left.

Dr. Johnson grimaced. “As okay as it can be for a girl who’s going to be a mother of two before she reaches her sixteenth birthday. Because of her pelvic disproportion, she’ll probably need a repeat C-section, which puts her at risk for some scary complications in the future if she keeps having kids.”

It took me a while to process. “Can’t she . . . can’t she have an abortion?” I asked painfully. I couldn’t believe I was even suggesting it.

Dr. Johnson shrugged wearily. “Nope. She’s Catholic, which is why she didn’t get an abortion the first time, even though she was only thirteen and it was essentially a date rape.”

I was shaking my head before the words even sank in. I thought of the knobbly knees squeezing together.

“Besides,” Dr. Johnson said, “she wouldn’t want an abortion even if she weren’t Catholic. This second baby is by her new boyfriend.” Her voice was flat.

“Maybe things will work out,” I said. It was easier to dream up a happy ending than to think too much about Vong’s past.

But not exactly realistic.

I was sitting at the front desk, helping with patient check-in, when Jessica and Darren came in laughing. Despite being more than half full, the waiting room was hushed, expectant. So when the two of them walked in with their cheery outside voices it was jarring, even embarrassing. They dropped their voices almost immediately, but even then their energy buzzed, filled the room.

As he let himself behind the front desk, Darren caught sight of me and tilted his chin in my direction. “Hey. You all right?” he whispered.

I couldn’t get Vong out of my head. My eyes flickered out to the waiting room. How many more stories like hers were out there? “I’m fine. Just getting used to how intense things are here.”

Darren nodded, understanding. He put his hand on my shoulder and held it there for a heartbeat. It was just a touch, but I shivered at the intimacy.

Later, as Dr. Johnson finished up her charting, I asked her what pelvic disproportion was.

“The term is for when a woman’s hips aren’t big enough to allow a baby through,” she said. “In general, a woman’s pelvis is much larger than a man’s so it can allow a baby’s head to go through. But there’s a limit to how wide hips can be before it interferes with your ability to walk—it’s called the obstetrical dilemma.”

I thought about the pictures I’d seen of Caster Semenya and her stick-straight hips, and grimaced.

Jessica misunderstood my frown. “I know, how messed up is that?” Jessica said. “To have to choose between having kids and being able to run away from something that wants to eat you? The tyranny of childbirth knows no bounds.”

“Hey,” said Darren. “What about the tyranny of having your gonads on the outside? It’s not like men chose to be one swift kick away from a world of pain.”

“Puh-leeze,” Jessica said. “Like there’s any question that girls have it worse? Menstruation? Labor? PMS? You don’t even know how awful it is to have to sit down to pee at rest stops.” She turned to me. “Kristin, back me up here.”

The two of them turned to stare at me, and in an instant I felt the tomato-and-cheese sandwich I ate for lunch start to come up. With a squeal of metal, I pushed my folding chair back. “Excuse me.” I ran to the staff bathroom until the nausea passed. Then I washed my face with cold water and sat down on the toilet seat.

After a few minutes went by I heard a tentative knock on the door.

“I’m almost done,” I shouted.

“Kristin? It’s Jessica. Are you all right?”

I sighed, and opened the door. Jessica peered in, as if to make sure that I really was done, then walked in and locked the door behind her. She leaned against the sink.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at the floor. “Darren set me straight on what it means to have your condition.”

Darren the Fact-Checker strikes again.

“If all that talk made you uncomfortable, I apologize.”

Uncomfortable? I thought. Was that the word to describe what I felt, a combination of wretchedness and hopelessness and revulsion at both what I was—and what I wasn’t?