Page 111 - In Five Years

“Bella,” I say. I take her hands in mine. “It’s going to be fine, okay? Whatever
it is, we’ll figure it out. You’re going to be fine.”

On Monday morning, we’re at the office of Dr. Finky—the best oncologist in
New York City. I meet Bella at the Ninety-Eighth Street entrance to Mount

Sinai. She gets out of the car, and Aaron is with her. I’m surprised to see him. I
didn’t think he was coming. Now that she’s not pregnant, now that we’re faced
with this, the biggest of all news, I don’t know that I expected him to stick

around. They’ve spent one summer together.
Dr. Finky’s office is on the fourth floor. In the elevator ride up, we’re met
with a dewy pregnant mother. I feel Bella turn inward, behind me, toward Aaron.

I hit the floor key harder.
The waiting room is nice. Cheerful. Yellow-striped wallpaper, potted
sunflowers, and a variety of magazines. The good ones. Vanity Fair, The New

Yorker, Vogue. There are only two people waiting, an elderly couple who seem to
be FaceTiming their grandchild. They wave at the camera, oohing and ahhing.
Bella cringes.

“We have a nine a.m. appointment. Bella Gold?”
The receptionist nods and hands me a clipboard full of papers. “Are you the
patient?”

I look behind me to where Bella stands. “No,” Bella says. “I am.”
The woman smiles at her. She wears two braids down her back and a nametag
that says “Brenda.”

“Hi, Bella,” she says. “Can I ask you to fill out these forms?”
She speaks in a soothing, motherly tone, and I know that is why she is here.
To soften the blow of whatever happens when patients disappear behind those

doors.
“Yes,” Bella says. “Thank you.”
“And can I make a copy of your insurance card?”

Bella riffles in her bag and pulls out her wallet. She hands a Blue Cross card
over. I wasn’t sure Bella had insurance or kept a card on her. I’m impressed at
the number of steps she’d needed to go through to get there. Does she buy it

through the gallery? Who set that up for her?